At a time when Thailand’s birth rate is falling and the government is encouraging people to have more children, a growing number of women have reportedly been fired after their employer-mandated pregnancy tests come back positive. Many have decided to get an abortion to avoid unemployment.

Sripai Nonsee (Photo by Ginger Cat)

According to labour rights activist Sripai Nonsee of the Rangsit and Area Labour Union Group, a network of labour unions in Pathum Thani’s Rangsit district and surrounding areas, women applying to work in Rangsit factories are being given pregnancy tests as part of their pre-employment medical screenings. Many of those who test positive have lost their jobs after their screenings.

She feels that medical screenings to determine whether employees are in good health before they start working, are a good thing as it can help with determining whether they later develop health problems due to their working condition. She thinks, however, that it is wrong to subject women to a urine pregnancy test as part of the routine screening.

This reportedly is the practice of subcontract companies in Pathum Thani that send workers to factories in the area. Women must consent to a urine test before they are hired and those who do not are not hired.

Current labour protection laws prohibit employers from laying off workers for getting pregnant, but the law does not cover subcontract workers and workers during their probationary period.  Signing the consent form also means that a women cannot bring a complaint against the company, Sripai explained.

She adds that companies generally do not tell laid off workers that they are being fired because they are pregnant.  They are afraid of the legal consequences as they can face criminal charges for violating labour protection law.  Instead, women are often told that they failed their performance evaluation at the end of the 120-day probation period, making it impossible for them to sue for unfair termination.

Even those passing their evaluations can still be forced to resign. One woman Sripai spoke to said that, after she found out she was pregnant, her supervisor stopped speaking to her and refused to give her assignments. When she requested leave to go to her antenatal appointments, her supervisor refused to tell her whether her request has been passed to Human Resources. Although she wanted to work at the factory, she eventually left because she felt she could no longer stay.

The labour rights movement had fought for legal protections for pregnant workers, Sripai said. Employers must respect these protections, she argues, as the impacts on employers are of short duration and pregnant workers can still do work if they are reassigned out of the production line. She feels that abuses occur because employers do not want to hire workers they see as unproductive.

Work or parenthood

Faced with the choice of keeping their jobs or having children, many have chosen to get an abortion. According to Sripai, many women who come from the provinces to find a job in the city often have just a small amount of money, and they rent rooms or stay with friends while applying for jobs. When they are sent for their pre-employment medical screening and their pregnancy test come back positive, many decide to terminate their pregnancies out of concern that companies will refuse to hire them. Even then, they are forced to work in informal sector jobs that pay less than the legal minimum wage while waiting for a follow up test to show that they are no longer pregnant.

Sripai explains that the situation is often worse for migrant workers. She recalls the case of a Myanmar woman who worked on a farm and was trying to get an abortion because she would lose her job if her employer found out she was pregnant. Farm workers are generally prohibited from leaving work sites as their employers claim that they might bring diseases that could infect livestock.  To enforce the policy, employers often confiscate migrants’ documents.  All this made it very difficult to help the woman get an abortion, Sripai said. She added that to keep her job, the woman decided to end the pregnancy at a later term than usual, despite the risks.

As a volunteer for the abortion rights group Tamtang Froundation, Sripai said that the majority of people she encountered are working age women seeking abortions due to economic pressures. Some have lost their jobs. Some were working but did not make enough money. Others could not raise a child on one income after their husbands left them.

Since 2021, abortion has been legal up to the 12th week of pregnancy.  Pregnancies can still be terminated up to the 20th week after a required examination and counselling process. As an abortion access counsellor, Sripai feels that the choice should be made willingly, not because women feel that they have no choice if they want to keep working.

“Terminating a pregnancy should be voluntary[…]The person should make the decision they are comfortable with whether to keep the pregnancy or to terminate.” she said.

“Abortion severely affects your health, especially mental health. Nobody is happy or wants to get an abortion just because it’s legal. It’s not like that. A lot of people feel like they need to do something, asking if they need to go make merit. There are these aspects, because most people are still religious.”

Although Thailand is in the process of passing a law to increase paid maternity leave to 120 days, Sripai believes that most workers are not paid enough, and with the rising cost of living, cannot afford to have children. It is not enough to increase leave time, she said, the minimum wage also needs to be raised and skilled workers should be paid at an appropriate rate.

Given that the Thai government is encouraging people to have more children to make up for the country’s falling birthrate, Sripai feels that workers should not be fired for being pregnant. Doing so would be against the government’s efforts.

“Every sector should be involved in developing human resources,” she said. “It shouldn’t be the case that unionists are thinking about it, the labour movement is thinking about it, the government is thinking about it, but the capitalists are being stubborn … How will we ever get enough people with potential?"

Better protection needed

According to Sripai, Thailand’s labour protection law is already very strict about how pregnant workers should be treated. Not only are employers prohibited from using pregnancy as a reason for firing them, employers are also required to transfer pregnant women to another department if they present a medical certificate stating that they cannot continue in their current position. Pregnant employees also cannot be made to work between 22.00 – 6.00, work overtime, or on weekends.

It is difficult for workers to protect their rights, however. The number of workers’ unions in Thailand is dwindling due to restrictive laws, including the Public Assembly Act, which Sripai said has been used to prosecute union leaders, spreading fear in the movement. Workers are also not educated on their rights and how to protect themselves, while the process of filing complaints is so complicated many don’t want to go through it.

Sripai notes that labour right complaints are now being handled by regional courts instead of provincial ones, forcing workers to travel across provinces to go to court. Many workers have spent more money traveling to court than what their employers owe them, she said.

More protection is needed during the job application process and for workers currently not considered employees under existing laws. Concrete measures are needed to ensure that women can keep their jobs and have children too. Sripai does not think women should be subject to a pregnancy test before they are hired. She also believes that they should be able to bring a complaint against companies if they consent to a urine test and the result costs them their jobs.

By way of example, she explains that employers are not allowed to reduce wages, even if workers consented. Consent forms in these cases are seen as invalid, and workers are allowed to sue employers for damages.  She thinks that consenting to a pregnancy test should be treated the same way; workers fired after getting a positive pregnancy test should be able to protect their rights.

“It is too much of a rights violations for a person who wants to have a job to have to consent to something like this, and it affects their employment or lack of employment,” Sripai said. “I think the public will understand. Workers should be able to sue for damages if they are not hired because the test comes back positive.”