Thai poultry factories accused of labour abuses

Poultry exported to Europe from factories in Thailand is sometimes prepared in conditions that violate labour rights, according to two Scandinavian groups promoting corporate responsibility.

The claim comes as Thailand's seafood industry is reeling from allegations its products are tainted by major labour abuses, including slavery on fishing boats.

The groups Finnwatch and Swedwatch said in a report released in Thailand they found abuses at six factories that process broiler meat, including exorbitant recruitment fees, illegal confiscation of personal documentation and forced labour. Earlier this week, the food conglomerate Nestle SA announced it had found that impoverished migrant workers in Thailand were sold or lured by false promises and forced to catch and process fish that ends up in its supply chain. Most migrant workers are from Myanmar and Cambodia.

Nestle's announcement followed reports from news outlets and nongovernmental organisations that tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to the company's shrimp, prawns and Purina brand pet foods. Nestle's findings echo reports this year on slavery in the seafood industry that have resulted in the rescue of more than 2,000 fishermen.

The report by Finnwatch and Swedwatch explores the employment conditions of migrant workers in Thailand's poultry industry.

"Migrant workers hired by companies exporting to the EU and other markets are often exposed to repeated violations of human and labour rights by employers and subcontractors as well as corrupt officials," the report said. "Many of them become victims of debt bondage" due to excessive recruitment fees they were often forced to pay, it said.

Other abuses include a lack of health insurance despite having fees for it deducted from their salaries, the confiscation of passports and work permits to tie workers to their workplace, and the use of child labour.

CP Foods Public Co. Ltd., two of whose factories received a mostly favourable evaluation in the report, issued a pre-emptive response earlier this month.

Senior Vice-President Suchart Sitthichai, manager of the company's chicken processing plant in the northeast province of Nakhon Ratchasima, said the company respected its migrant workers and "condemned all exploitation, forms of child labour, forced labour and human trafficking."

He said the company had been found to meet Thailand's highest labour standards, reflecting "our spirit to treat all workers under our roof on a fair, nondiscriminatory standard that meets international labor practices."

CP Foods is part of the CP Group, which is one of Asia's biggest agribusiness-based conglomerates. The other companies that were researched - Laemthong Poultry; the Saha Farms Group, operating as Golden Line Business Co. Ltd.; and the Centaco Group, operating as Sky Food Co. Ltd. - asserted in published replies to questions from the researchers that they operated responsibly.