process prior to 1957. Thailand's integration into the world capitalist economic order
combined with the growth of a domestic based process of accumulation represented a
profound shift in the way Thai society was to be produced and reproduced. Integral to
this process of change was the emergence of a new class of industrial workers whose
social survival was dependent on the successful sale of their labour-power to the
capitalist class. Certainly this class remained small. However, as Brown [1988:35] has
stressed the economic significance of the working class is 'more influenced by its
economic position than its relative size'. This is a point which has been overlooked by
previous writers. By focusing purely on the numerical dimension, these writers have
failed to appreciate how industrial workers came to occupy a strategically important,
indeed crucial, position within the domestic Thai political economy prior to 1957. In
the rice and saw mills, in the tin mines, on the railways and tramways, on the ports and docks, in the electricity generating plants, in the cement and tobacco factories and in the hundreds of smaller industrial establishments industrial workers played a role which was of fundamental importance for the development of the Thai economy during this period. Moreover, the age, sex and, in particular, the ethnicity of this class of producers is, at least at a structural level, largely unimportant for it is their role as producers of both use-values and exchange-values within an emerging capitalist economy that their contributions to pre-1957 Thai economic development must be assessed.
Chapter Three
CLASS F O R M A T I O N : T H E 1923 T R A M W A Y STRIKE
3.1 Introduction
Having examined the development of the structural relationship between wage-labour and capital prior to 1957, the principal aim of the remaining chapters of this study is to take some initial steps toward tracing the processes of class formation which occurred among industrial workers. As indicated in the introduction of this study, the extent to which industrial workers actually began to organise and struggle in pursuit of interests determined by their position within the capitalist class structure has been the subject of considerable debate within Thai labour studies. Indeed the vast majority of writers have concluded that very little in the way of class formation actually occurred, with traditional culture and dominant ideologies seen as representing barriers to the emergence of a 'real' working class. These views suffer from a fundamental weakness in that they have been premised on a meagre amount of empirical research. In fact, it has only been in very recent years that we have the empirical evidence, drawn from archival and newspaper accounts of a strike by Thai tramway workers, which allows us to examine the beginnings of the process of class formation as it occurred in the Thai context. As the vast majority of past writers have either ignored or, in some cases, even denied that this strike actually occurred [Chandravithun,1982:12], my aim in the first part of this chapter is to provide what is the first detailed historical account of the tramwaymen's struggle. In part two I will move on to offer an analysis of the dispute. Employing concepts derived from theories of class formation the aim is to provide an informed discussion of the strike and demonstrate why this strike was indeed a highly significant historical event.
3.2 The 1923 Tramwaymen's Strike
On 31 December 1922, 122 tramway workers employed by the Siam Electric Company (SEC) stopped work and gathered in front of the Bangkok municipal offices where, in line with established practice, they were met by members of the local constabulary.1 Undaunted by this reception, the men presented a list of grievances to
The Siam Electric Company (SEC) is one example of the many capitalist enterprises which emerged in Thailand prior to 1932. Financed jointly by both European and Thai capital, the company was established in 1885 with a working capital of 53,000 pounds and was originally commissioned to produce electricity for the lighting of the royal palace [ B T W M , 12/1/1920],