Payungsak ousted as FTI chairman
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Federation of Thai Industries' 184 executive members today voted to oust chairman Payungsak Chartsutipol.
The voting took place at the 3pm meeting. A group of executive members convened the meeting in front of the meeting room at Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.
According to FTI Secretary General Sommat Khunset, Payungsak had the meeting room locked and guarded it with about 10 police officers.
According to vice chairman Taweekit Chaturacharoenkhun, over 200 members of the Federation of Thai Industries have supported the move to oust Payungsak.
He said that provincial members have been dissatisfied with Payungsak on several issues, with the minimum wage hike being the latest one. He said that the government's insistence to activate the wage hike showed that he failed to help small and medium-sized operators.
Payungsak yesterday decided to scrap the annual meeting scheduled for today, to avoid confrontation and bad image to the organisation.
He is facing an ouster move launched by FTI secretary-general Sommat Khunset and some supporters.
"As chief executive of the FTI, I have the Nov 26 meeting postponed to control damage on the FTI, before it goes beyond the repairable point," he said in the SMS sent to FTI members.
Dissatisfied with Payungsak, his opponents said that the chairman had not done enough in convincing the government to postpone the nationwide minimum wage hike. Established in 1967, the FTI is the country's largest private-sector group with over 10,000 members.
The government recently insisted that the wage hike would take effect on Jan 1 as planned. Payungsak last week came up with proposals for the government, to alleviate the negative impacts on industrialists nationwide.
