Stalemate in wage panel over Bt300 daily wage
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The Central Wage Tripartite Committee yesterday failed to reach a decision as to when the flat Bt300 minimum daily wage should go into effect after employees' representatives refused to accept employers' demand for a four-year delay.
The panel will discuss the issue again on October 17.
After the four-hour meeting, Labour Ministry permanent secretary Somkiat Chayasriwong said employers wanted to wait for four years before increasing the daily wage rate to Bt300 and also wanted concrete measures and guarantees from the government.
The government has been under pressure to deliver on its campaign promise, with the workforce demanding that the Bt300 rate be implemented immediately in Bangkok and its vicinity, by January 1 in other large provinces and the rest of the country in the next two years.
Somkiat said he hoped the October 17 meeting would be final, though he did not want to force the result through voting, because “a voting-enabled win would not be accepted by all parties concerned”.
Atthayuth Leeyawanich, a panel member representing employers, said that under the Labour Protection Act wages could not be adjusted freely, but had to depend on inflation, cost of living and production cost.
“The 40-per-cent average increase [based on the flat Bt300 rate] does not go according to law,” he said, adding that he doubted if the Bt300 would be constitutional.
“Although the Act does not stipulate liabilities for violation, I wonder if the panel’s decision would go against the Constitution,” he said.
Labour leader Wilaiwan sae-Tia had earlier submitted an open letter to the ministry saying the Bt300 wage should be implemented by January 1 or the government would face legal action for failing to keep its election promise.
She added that some 3,000 labourers and members of the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee (TLSC) would gather outside Government House to submit this request to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, she added.
Labour Minister Pol General Phadermchai Sasomsap, who met Wilaiwan and fellow workers, said the flat Bt300 rate would most probably not be implemented by January 1 as the process of many related incentives, including corporate tax reduction, had yet to be completed.
