Thai workers have to pay off the debts
of their own Bonds and Skases,
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By Andy Blunden
Government and ALP leaders, our bosses, the media - everyone is always telling us why we should work harder for lower wages so we can 'compete' with workers in Asia, how good privatisation is for 'the economy', how the public service has to be cut so employers can create more jobs, and so on and so forth. Well, spare a thought for our brothers and sisters in Thailand where wages are about one twentieth of what they are in Australia.
Ten years ago, the IMF and the World Bank took control of Thailand's economy and 'opened it up' to foreign investment. Lucky Thailand was the recipient of billions of dollars of Japanese investment. Apart from taking advantage of the cheap labour available in Thailand's textile, clothing and footwear industry, most of the cash went into real estate and speculation. Thailand's version of our Bonds and Skases borrowed money from the Japanese and used it to speculate, loaning out at inflated interest rates, driving up prices in the property boom that followed.
In the meantime, Thai workers fought for better wages and conditions and by 1996 had achieved an average wage rate of US63 cents an hour in the clothing industry. At the same time, Thailand's speculators began to come unstuck. The property market collapsed as borrowers proved unable to repay the massively inflated interest, bankruptcies led to collapse in the finance industry. Sensing blood, the currency dealers moved in for the kill and began to speculate against the Thai currency, driving the state to the verge of bankruptcy, slashing the value of the national currency and crashing living standards of ordinary workers.
Japanese investors began to pull their money out of manufacturing, with wage rates like US16 cents per hour available in Indonesia and US26 cents in China, aggravating the crisis and forcing the economy into a massive recession. [see Maureen Murphy's article in Militant July 1997]
So now the IMF & Co. have moved in again, with more 'restructuring' for the Thai economy, the sell-off of Thai Airlines and the Electricity generating authority, a wage freeze and abolition of all protection for local industry. The contributors of the 'rescue package' will redeem their investments by buying up Thai factories and property, including public utilities at rock bottom prices, with a government-enforced wage freeze to guarantee profits to the 'rescuers'. [see Hoke Mosely's article in Militant September 1997] So much for the benefits of globalisation. So much for the benefits of working for 63 cents an hour. So much for attracting foreign investment. So much for the virtues of privatisation.
The money comes in one month - it goes out the next. You're forced to work for 63 cents an hour - someone else can be made to work for 16 cents an hour. Privatise the country's assets - so it can be sold off at fire-sale prices to pay off the debts of property speculators.
Thank you very much! I think we might seek a second opinion before swallowing that medicine. Firms that ruin the country's economy should be taken into public ownership. A decent living wage should be guaranteed for everyone, so that a country has the benefit of a healthy domestic market, not forced to export cheap products because their own citizens are too poor to buy the products they themselves make. Countries should have the right to use planning and measures such as protection, not to maintain inefficient industries or protect parasitic employers, but simply to be able to plan and control the development of their own economy.
Australian workers should say 'No!' to the economic rationalist medicine in Australia and they should do anything they can to support their brothers and sisters in Thailand and elsewhere to say 'No!' as well.