Running Head: Employment Discrimination in Thailand

Employment Discrimination and Preferential Treatment in Thailand

A Research Paper Submitted to

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

PME 602
Managing Engineering Competencies and Skills
By
Zack Rider
June 26, 2015

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

Employment Discrimination and Preferential Treatment in Thailand

Much the other countries, Thailand has been faced with discrimination for a long
time. According to the Employment Discrimination Law in Thailand (2012), Thailands
Constitution prohibits discrimination based on, language, nationality, place of birth, age,
gender, physical or health conditions, social status, religion, education or even political
affiliations. However, job discrimination is still happening in Thailand. For example, at Thai
Airways, flight attendants who are overweight have to lose their extra weight within a year,
or they will be dismissed (Seithi, 2011). This is just one example that happened in Thailand.
Furthermore, there is much discrimination that is going on in Thailand such as the glass
ceiling, people with disabilities, gender inequality, and so on. The reason is that the penalties
for violating the law is not heavy fines. According to Mujtaba, Cavico, Williams, &
Sungkhawan (2012), the Constitution does not provide the penalties for the violation of
discrimination. Therefore, employees or person can sue for damages to the Thai Civil and
Commercial Code and can be fined up to Bath 20,000 ($600) for engaging in discrimination
against employees (p.12).

Glass Ceiling
First off, the glass ceiling is very crucial for Thais culture. The typical Thai
workplace appears to have a glass ceiling that keeps women from moving up the managerial
ranks, even in the public sector. Women made up only 20% of senior officials in the civil
service, said Amornvivat (2015, para 4). The main reason is that Thais culture believes that
women are the follower not the leader. It is because the majority of Thai people are Thai
and Chinese. They culturally believe that sons will be the leader of the family and the
company while daughters will be mothers and followers in the future. Conversely, the fact is
that everyone is born with a different talent. Some of old traditional people believe that

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

women are useful for jobs that do not need to think that much. However, by using a program
for international student assessment (PISA) in 2012, Thailand girls scored higher than boys in
mathematics, reading, and science according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) (Amornvivat, 2015). Human resources management (HRM) can
play an essential role in helping to break down the glass ceiling. We know that HR
department handles training and development, evaluating the performance and keeping a
personal record of every employee. By analyzing the data, the HR can provide the method for
women employees who face the glass ceiling problem. According to Smith (n.d), some ways
of breaking the glass ceiling are learning the needed traits and skills that the organization
needs, building the reputation, finding the mentor, and setting the goal in the organization.
Hence, this will help employees getting to the top management level of that company even if
they are women.

People with Disabilities

People with Disabilities seem to be a one of the biggest problems in Thais society.
According to Sethi (2011), the number of people with disabilities in Thailand was three
percent, according to the 2007 ILO study. Therefore, most of them were farming and fishing
in the countryside. Only 35% of them were employed, and they were working in professional
occupations. This problem has occurred for decades. It is because people think that people
with disabilities cannot help themselves. Later, the stereotype of also having discrimination
with disabilities scatters over employers. These with disabilities tend to be not employed by
employers because of the lack of knowing equal employment, and the bias toward the
discrimination (Sethi, 2011). It is true that Thailand does have laws to help those with
disabilities. However, it goes back to the grounds of violating this law. They are several laws
that Thai government has used to enforce laws with employers. Therefore, none of them have

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

a heavy fine. In this case, HR needs to explain what authority those with disabilities have,
and help them to develop skills along with creating activities where employees interact with
each other. All in all, Thailand needs a law similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990 (ADA). This is needed ensure that those with disabilities will not get unequal
treatment from employers in the activities of hiring, training, evaluation, termination,
promotion, and other employment factors adhere to the guidelines outlined in the legislation.
More importantly, this is the one of the responsibilities that HRM has to know to implement
policies, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (What do human resources, n.d).

Gender inequality
It is very obvious that the root of inequality in Thais society comes from the
monarchy system that Thailand was using for thousands of years. The bias of gender
discrimination has been dispersed in Thais society for decades. According to Rojanaphruk
(2014), Thailand is still facing gender inequality problem such as trafficking, stereotypical
attitudes to employment, violence, and gender-related roles which were submitted in a report
by the Thai government to the United Nations. Therefore, due to the economic and social
changes, Thai women play a significant role in the Thai labor force. Most of them are
working in white collar jobs. However, in 2006, female accountants made an average of Bath
21,900 per month compared to male accountants who got Bath 27,000 (Sethi, 2011). To
prevent this, HR has a very critical role in reducing the gender inequality.

According to White (n.d), they are several ways to promote gender equality.

Forming a policy to ensure that both men and women employees are equally compensated

for performing the same work.

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

Forming a policy to certify that both men and women employees are equally treated in

hiring, promotion, training, and recruitment.

Forming a policy to allow all employees to balance their work lives and their personal

lives.

Forming a policy that rigorously prohibits any form of sexual harassment.

Forming a policy to make sure that every person in the company has to follow the

nondiscriminatory policies.

Providing the ways to report such activities to the human resources department.

Preferential Treatment
Preferential hiring seems to be a problem in Thailand as well. Same as here, students
that graduate from the Ivy League appear to have more opportunity to get into the huge firms.
It is not just only the work performance of that student, it is also the connection that the
applicants have with the recruitment officers or interviewers. In Thailand, it has been found
that some large companies are likely to accept graduate students from the same universities
that the top managers were graduated. For example, students that graduate from top ten
universities in Thailand have more chances than the others. The reason is people inside these
organizations believe that these students have the same ideas and cultures with them.
Consequently, more and more students from these universities are going to these top
companies. Later, it ends up with the fact that others that have not graduated from these
universities will only have a slight chance to get into these firms. According to BoldenBarrett (n.d), nepotism is the activity of promoting, hiring, and showing other forms of
preferential treatment that come from close friends and relatives.
To make this clear, this is called connection nepotism. By virtue of a shared
experience such

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

as attending the same high school (not necessarily at the same time), the "connection
nepotism" turns a blind eye to poor job fit and low employee performance. The
connection may be by virtue of being from the same community, attended the same
high school, members of the same fraternity/sorority, interest in the same sports team,
Moreover /or served in the same branch of the armed forces (Young, 2008).
There is some downside to having a nepotism in the company. For example, nepotism effects
for organization in many ways such as disruption of the workforce, increased the risk of
lawsuits, loss of productivity, and the bottom line (Virginia Employment Law Letter, 2008).

To prevent this, HR needs to step into this problem. These are methods of diminishing
the nepotism (Cody, 2014).

Using a 360-degree employee to evaluate that does not include a connection, employee

relative, and paramour in the process.

Providing a detailed job description that includes specific goals an employee must master

before he/she can be considered for promotion.

Making in-depth announcements to all staff when an employee is promoted that explains

why that individual has moved up in the ranks.

Having a separate hiring and screening process to assure that the best applicants are hired,

regardless of any connections to someone in the firm.

Being able to fire relatives.

To sum up this, Thailand still faces many forms of discrimination, and preferential treatment
as well. To reduce this, the human resources department in every organization has to provide
some training and orientation that is related to these topics. Plus, everyone that is in the
company needs to be open-minded for everything. However, there are still problems that need

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

to be fixed on a government level. It is very noticeable that most of the laws still have a gap
that employers can use to take advantage of their employees. Also, the fine for violating these
laws is not severe. It will take time to solve this problem. If we can fix this, it would be great
for the firms and the society.

Employment Discrimination in Thailand

References
Bolden-Barrett, V. (n.d.). How to Deal With Employee Complaints on Preferential
Treatment. Retrieved June 23, 2015, from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/dealemployee-complaints-preferential-treatment-8057.html
Cody, S. (2014, September 8). 8 Tips to Avoid Nepotism Charges. Retrieved June 18, 2015,
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Nepotism and Its Dangers in the Workplace | HR Hero Line. (n.d.). Retrieved June 24,
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Rojanaphruk, P. (2014, November 27). Subtle signs of gender inequality - The Nation.
Retrieved June 22, 2015, from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Subtle-signs-ofgender-inequality-30248635.html
Smith, C. (n.d.). Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Reaching for the Top with Everyday Tools.
Retrieved June 22, 2015, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_71.htm
Sethi, M. (2011, April 28). Discrimination and Diversity. Retrieved June 18, 2015, from
http://bk.asia-city.com/city-living/article/discrimination-and-diversity
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What do Human Resources Managers Need to Know about the Americans With
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Young, C. (2008, September 6). Employee Favoritism and Nepotism - Employee Morale

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Cancer. Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://www.therainmakergroupinc.com/humancapital-strategy-blog/bid/91330/employee-favoritism-and-nepotism-employee-moralecancer