Thirty workers, some of whom were not willing to make temporary passports, resigned from their jobs at SAHA FARM Co. Ltd Meat Product factory after receiving their salary. The factory is located outside Luburi Town, near Bangkok. After their resignation, the employer called the police to have the workers arrested.

The workers collected their wages the night of Tuesday, December 8th and were then left by their boss at a nearby football field, which had been covered with a plastic tarp. Around 3:00 am, on the morning of Wednesday December 9^th, local police arrived and arrested the workers.

The scene was witnessed by other workers who were returning from the night shift. The workers, upset with what they witnessed, destroyed one of the office rooms inside the factory.

One of the eye witnesses, Ma Phyu said; "Those who were unwilling to make passports and asked to resign from their jobs were kept at a football ground with their belongings. There was no roofing and no ground sheet. Some of those workers who saw the situation became upset and destroyed an office room- the computer and the TV. They even burned documents".

Ko Soe Moe, one of the workers said: "We were asked to make temporary passports and we didn't want to. 1,100 baht will cut up to 8 months salary and we replied that we were not willing to. For those of us who wanted to resign- it did not go smoothly. The police were called and they were arrested”.

Ko Arkar, another worker who was arrested, said: "In our factory, we earn 4,500 baht per month, but we have to buy rice and curries outside of the factory due to the poor quality of the provided food- after buying food we have nothing left. We work from around 6 am to 8 pm daily. So we discussed it and decided to resign and move to another work place after we received our wages”.

In the SAHA FARM Meats Produce Company, there are two factories, which are referred to as “88” and “99” in Thai. The incident occurred at factory “88”. Factory 88 currently employs around 3000 Burmese migrant workers. The various jobs within the factory include: feeding chickens and pigs, producing meats, and products from fish and shrimp farms. The jobs are easy to obtain, but resigning from the factory is very difficult. According to the workers, they are not allowed to stop working if they would like to.

Some Burmese workers were upset and decided not to return to work following the arrest of their coworkers. The employer talked with Burmese workers who are fluent in Thai and asked the workers to return to work, ensuring them that they would be granted the same rights as Thai workers.

According to factory workers, those who were arrested have not yet been released. Many workers still at the factory are left disappointed and frustrated, knowing they will have to pay the money to have temporary passports made.