Pressure on SSO to hold board vote

Labour and migrant workers’ rights advocacy groups are stepping up pressure on the Social Security Office (SSO) to honour its promise to hold an election to pick its board members next month.

Led by the Labour Network for People’s Rights (LNPR) and Migrant Working Group, the activists jointly submitted a petition yesterday, asking the SSO to update the public on its plan to hold the election.

If the SSO fails to honour the promise, these advocacy groups will report it for dereliction of duty to the authorities, warned Sia Champathong, president of the LNPR.

The current SSO board has been in office for eight years since it was installed by the now-defunct National Council for Peace and Order following the 2014 coup, he said.

Since a new regulation on the election of the board came into effect in 2021, not a single election has been held, he said.

And when the labour rights groups formally enquired about the election plan on Oct 5 last year, the SSO promised it would be held in March, he said.

So far, no one seems to know anything about the election, which is supposed to take place in around a month, he said.

Also, the labour rights groups did not agree with the SSO’s decision to preclude migrant workers registered with the SSO from voting, he said.

“We have no clue why the SSO keeps dragging its feet on this,” he said.

However, the SSO insisted it has no desire to delay the election, said SSO spokeswoman Niyada Seneemanomai.

Recently it initiated the amendment of more than 20 related laws in order to facilitate the process, including making it possible for workers to cast their votes from wherever they are instead of having to go back to vote in their hometowns, she said.

It has been estimated that it will cost about 700 million baht to hold the election, she said.

As for migrant workers’ right to vote, Boonchob Suthamanuswong, the permanent secretary for labour, on Nov 14 ordered a review of the regulation barring migrant workers from voting in the SSO board election, according to Ms Niyada.

The revision is expected to be finalised next month, she said.