ผลกระทบและข้อเสนอทางเลือกเชิงนโยบายในการพัฒนาระบบการคุ้มครองทางสังคมเพื่อสร้างความเป็นธรรมแก่แรงงานนอกระบบของประเทศไทยภายหลังสถานการณ์โควิด-19 Impact and Policy Alternative Proposals to Develop the Social Protection System leads to Fairness for Informal Workers in Thailand after the COVID-19

Abstract

         This academic article aims to present the impact of COVID-19 causing the inequality of informal workers in Thailand, the conception of protecting the informal workers based on social justice and social protection, and to propose policy alternatives to develop a social protection system that leads to fairness for informal workers. The findings show that informal workers were affected, such as by suspension and lay-off. 
As a result, they do not have the potential to insure themselves according to the present social security structure of the government. It was also found that the concept focuses on developing a social welfare system in which the government aids informal workers who are vulnerable in society and expanding a new social security system that they are able to co-payment. The alternative policy proposals are: 1) Assistance system consists of grants, employment for short-term work with enterprises and up-skill and re-skill for workers 2) Organizing specific social welfare for informal workers that the government is primarily responsible for on behalf of employers and determining workers to jointly pay for their insurance in a bilateral system 3) Arrangement of the system to assist informal workers in a trilateral system with the cooperation of the government, the private and the public sector in cases workers are at risk, such as access to food and medicine services, and 4) Expansion of social safety nets by decentralizing to a local government, for example, establishing a community social security fund to enable informal workers to access compensation and other rights according to community-level social security rights.