BANGKOK, March 8 (AP) — Thailand's fishing and seafood industry has made some improvement in working conditions, including less physical violence, but problems such as unfair pay and deception in contracting persist, a survey conducted by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) found. The European Union in 2015 gave Thailand a "yellow card" on its fishing exports, warning that it could face a ban on EU sales if it didn't reform the industry. Thailand's government responded by introducing new regulations and setting up a command centre to fight illegal fishing. The ILO report released on Wednesday on "Ship to Shore Rights" recommends the Thai government strengthen its legal framework, ensure effective enforcement, establish higher industry standards and enhance workers' skills, knowledge and welfare. "We want competitiveness in the global seafood trade to mean more than low prices and high quality," Graeme Buckley, ILO country director for Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, said at a news conference. "We want it to mean decent work for all the industry's workers, from the boat to the retailer." A Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press investigation in 2015-16 that uncovered severe rights abuses affecting migrant workers in Thailand's fishing and seafood industries helped focus attention on the problem. The AP's stories helped free more than 2,000 enslaved men from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, and led to more than a dozen arrests, amended US laws and lawsuits seeking redress. The ILO said changes in Thailand's legal and regulatory framework had contributed to positive developments since the group's last survey of workers in 2013. It said only 6 per cent of fishing boat workers in 2013 had a signed or written contract with their employers, but a study undertaken in 2017 found 43 per cent of the respondents recalled signing a contract. "Another possible sign of progress is the type of abuses reported," said the ILO. "Although 12 per cent of all workers surveyed this year reported harassment or verbal abuse — and 7 per cent faced threats of violence at work — reports of physical violence were relatively few, at 2 per cent of all workers surveyed."
