RLUG adapted its organising strategies during COVID-19, focusing on protecting workers’ rights and building women’s leadership while moving activities online.
Key achievements
The project delivered:
- Increased young leaders (under 35) on union committees from 18 to 32
- Achieved 36% women’s representation among 10,000 members by:
- Ensuring at least one woman presenter at all seminars
- Redesigning training to promote gender equality
- Supporting women to take leadership roles
- Conducted 3 education sessions and 14 study groups covering:
- Thai Labour Law
- COVID-19 workplace regulations
- ILO conventions (87, 98, 102, 138, 143, 183, 181)
- Gender issues and relationships
- Intergenerational solidarity
- Grew three unions to over 70% density
- Welcomed two new unions to RLUG
- Secured one-off COVID payments for two unions
- Prevented proposed cuts to COVID compensation in five workplaces
- Successfully moved 8 study groups to Zoom
Challenges faced
- COVID-19 severely limited migrant worker organising due to:
- Movement restrictions
- Health concerns
- Communication barriers
- Planned Women’s Centre couldn’t open due to pandemic restrictions
- Export industry disruption affected:
- Raw material supply
- Production levels
- Worker job security
- Required rapid adaptation to online organising with limited digital infrastructure
Project impact
Despite restrictions, RLUG:
- Advanced women’s leadership through structured training
- Protected workers’ COVID-19 compensation through collective action
- Successfully moved activities online while maintaining engagement
- Maintained union strength during economic crisis
- Built capacity for digital organising
