Unionists 'laid off in wake of wage increase'

 

 

“Labour union members have been deemed as hostile [by employers] and some of them have been laid off in many cases, or assigned to non-paying duties or no longer given overtime work, which earns them extra income,” said Chalee Loysung, chairman of the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee (TLSC).

Grumbling by workers about not being paid the full Bt300 is commonplace, but only 73 written complains have been received by the TLSC since April 1.

Among the popular ploys used by employers is including welfare benefits in the mandatory Bt300 figure to avoid breaking the law while saving huge extra costs.

Many workers in companies where salaries rise according to seniority and work experience, especially those in electronics plants, were laid off even before April 1, he said.

TLSC counsellors had visited many workplaces reporting such problems to hear directly from aggrieved workers as well as those without labour unions to give advice on how to work on the partial payment problem.

The Pheu Thai-led government should be held accountable for resolving the issues, which stemmed from the Bt300 policy that they promised, he added.

Yongyuth Mentaphao, chairman of the Automobile Labour Congress Of Thailand, said he sees more havoc coming after January 1, when the new wage is due to be extended across the country from the first seven provinces. 

Authorities and the Labour Ministry should get fully involved in problem solving, as workers were fighting for their rights alone, he said.

Sattawat Wachirawit, a member of the Thailand Electronic and Appliance Workers Federation, said firms with facilities in many locations would face an internal migration of workers. This would disrupt their operations, defeat cost controls and cause disciplinary concerns.

The labour-intensive garment industry was the worst in terms of unwillingness to pay Bt300 or employing devices to keep the cost down, said Chaloey Chombulan, a member of the Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation of Thailand.

“Many workers agreed to sign revised contracts that would end up not fully paying Bt300 to them but keep their employers safe from legal action,” he said.

The chairman of a local hotel and service industry confederation in Phuket said small to medium-sized hotels were making their staff accept a welfare-padded Bt300 rate without breaking the law. Some of them laid off highly paid staff, claiming a temporary freeze of business to minimise severance payments, and then hired a new set of workers at lower salaries, he said.