Labour unions propose redefining of minimum wage

[rooster59]

Labour unions propose redefining of minimum wage

 

A coalition of labour unions has proposed the government to redefine minimum wage, saying the current 300-baht/day minimum wage is far too low.

 

The coalition which includes the State Enterprises Workers’ Relations Confederation and its labour networks held a meeting on Friday (Sept 8) at the Thai Labour Museum to discuss minimum wage issue.

 

The coalition agreed that the current 300 baht/day minimum wage which is applied nationwide with the exception of some provinces where the wage is slightly increased is barely enough for an individual to live a humble life let alone supporting a family.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/labour-unions-propose-redefining-minimum-wage/

 

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-09-09

[champers]

Another stir of the pot. The free spending Government's response should be interesting.

[billd766]

I do agree that 300 baht per day is pitiful and many people have problems living on that.

 

To go from 300 to 6 or 700 baht a day is a laudable thing but brings with it new problems.

 

Firstly no employers can really afford a doubling of the wage packets without a corresponding doubling of the work rate and doubling of the efficiency.

 

Secondly a big part of the wage problem is the over staffing in many places. For example I bought a circular saw blade for 210 baht at a HomePro shop in Nakhon Sawan on Thursday. I counted 10 people behind the cash tills and admin area and at least 5 staff out on the shop floor. and I didn't all over the shop but only to one section.

 

There was only one other customer that I saw, so how can they make any money or profit on 210 thb?

 

Another example is Global House where there are dozens of staff but very few who actually know their stuff, let alone speak English (a minor consideration).

 

The electricity bills alone for those businesses must be enormous not to mention staff wages, even at 300 thb/day.

 

My neice graduated from UNi several years ago and despite the governments promises of a minimum guantanted salary of 15,000 thb per month she could only get 13,000. She quit that job for another and still didn't get a rise. Now she works for herself and makes a lot more money.

 

When robotics are really introduced into Thailand there will be many under educated Thais losing their jobs. I wonder if their will be a Thai version of Luddites coming along?

 

If the nation wage is doubled then the cost of living will be doubled at least and then another pay rise will be needed in a viscous circle.

 

I have no answer to the problem.

[Genmai]

"He suggested that the appropriate minimum wage should be between 600-700 baht as he called on all parties concerned to sit down to discuss minimum wage."

 

     

If this utterly insane proposition goes through then it will be the final nail in the coffin of foreign investment. As a young entrepreneur who has moved here to start an arts & crafts company that employs uneducated locals full-time for non-strenuous manual labour work I can say that while this proposition looks good on the surface it will ultimately be the death of uneducated Thais in the lower socio-economic strata. Many Thais already struggle to obtain the necessary tools or mental aptitudes that can allow them to create something of value in the vicinity of 300 THB daily. As an employer I now have to raise that bar even higher. This means that apart from being able to simply work with their hands anyone I hire now has to be able to also recite poetry, fix computers, design catalogues and make spreadsheets for clients. In an industry that is constantly competing with cheap mass-produced products this wage increase would mean that my company's already expensive hand-made goods would be priced entirely out of the market. I cannot automate because my products are made entirely by hand and thus depend on a low labour wage. I cannot cut into my own profits because there simply aren't any. We are a new business and have been burning through our savings while working 80 hour work weeks for over a year. To put it short - this would put us out of business overnight. 

 

Now, we would not mind paying 600-700 THB if we could find sensible multi-skilled driven individuals with a good work ethic and a healthy determination to succeed. But we all know that Thailand's education system fails spectacularly at creating such individuals. Not only that but not everyone has the drive to obtain a higher education and become a specialist in some field. Some people just want to take it easy, watch bananas grow and take occasional contract work. Some are hard-working unskilled women that want to supplement their husband's income. These people (who make up a large portion of the population) will now be out of a job because employers will not be able to pay them 600-700 THB. This wage increase could work if there was already a large pool of highly-skilled specialists, but right now no such pool exists. Perhaps it could work if the wage increase would only apply to those with university degrees, but again, the education system needs to be completely overhauled first.

 

On top of that there are all the institutional difficulties that a foreigner faces when starting a business in Thailand. From the moment of initiating company registration it took me almost a year to obtain my work permit. Inane stacks of paperwork, constantly moving goalposts, inconsistent requests and responses from officials, as well as endless trips to the immigration where a maximum of 5 work-permit related requests are processed each day. I was lucky - during summer you only have to que up from 5AM, as opposed to winter when people supposedly have to come to take the que at midnight the day before. Just to submit a few papers. And now that everything is supposedly above board I am never quite safe. There are ample stories of foreigners being arrested by undercover police who catch them in the act of carrying crates of potatoes into their kitchen or operating a cash register in the absence of Thai staff at their own establishments, their crime being "carrying out work that falls outside of their position as stated in their work permit". Whenever an ominous black pick-up parks near our house I have to stop whatever I am doing and sit in front of my computer for fear of someone taking a photo of me washing my dishes or cleaning the floor of my house as that could land me in prison since it is manual work that could be done by a Thai person.

 

I won't bother with going into the details of the nuances of Thai people's cultural characteristics which drive me up the wall and cause considerable damage to my business through carelessness and irresponsibility. Or the fact that even if I supply all of the funding I will never legally own more than 49% of my business. Or how I have to dance around regulations that prohibit foreigners from performing the myriad of tasks designated "for Thais only". Even without mentioning those things the question still has to be asked: what does Thailand have to offer to foreign investors when the low minimum wage disappears? The answer is: not much, especially when a country like Vietnam is right around the corner.

 

While Thailand spends a much larger amount of money on its education system it consistently gets placed at the bottom rankings in terms of results. While the EF English Proficiency Index places Thailand at #56 out of 70 countries with a "Very Low" score Vietnam is placed at #31 with a "Moderate" score. This is despite the Gross National Income per capita of Vietnam being one third of Thailand's and despite the fact that Thailand has been the top destination for international tourism for a very long time. The latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that evaluates the quality and efficiency of different countries' education systems places Thailand close to the bottom (amongst countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Albania and Mexico) and Vietnam close to the top (amongst countries like Canada, Hong Kong and Macao) for achievements in virtually every area of academics. Vietnam is also #1 in the world for rate of wealth creation, outpacing countries like China, India and Kenya, which means there is a rapidly growing class of consumers with great purchasing power. With a higher percentage of Internet Penetration (48.3% vs Thailand's 34.9%) more of the population can access online marketplaces and connect digitally. The requirements and processes for obtaining an investor visa in Vietnam are no-where near as draconic as they are in Thailand. The World Economic Forum in its Competitive Rankings gives Thai infrastructure a rating of 4.4 with a downward trend and Vietnamese infrastructure a rating of 3.9 with a strong upward trend. Research carried out by the Boston Consulting Group in 2015 found that "Vietnam is on par with countries like Japan, Germany and Australia in its ability to convert wealth into well-being". Thailand with its much higher GDP is given a much lower rating in this ability. Then you have their history of being colonized by a European nation, their young (and mostly good-looking) population, a far healthier diet with plenty of raw greens, cheap beer, a lower cost of living, internationally renowned work ethic and an absence of a government that gets overthrown every couple of years and has their constitution promptly shredded up. And to top it all off, an absolutely crucial thing for companies involved in product manufacturing - a minimum wage that is a fraction of what these Thai labour unions are proposing. 

 

There is simply no way that Thailand can undergo this wage increase and retain companies like mine that depend on manual labour. Not when much better options exist next door. Those are not just my words, it is exactly what my Thai partner said when I read her this article. Sorry Thailand, 300 THB is the best thing you had going for you. Remnants of a degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery, spicy soups that burn my ass and wooden frogs that make funny sounds just aren't going to cut it unfortunately.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RichardColeman]

God no ! Thai people on this 'minimum wage' already have mortgages with the bank, motorbikes, cars, stereo systems, and drink whiskey and party all the time - double their income and they'll be buying boats, jet-skis, planes and villas next.

 

Actually, on a serious note, whilst it is low, I feel Thailand is set to go seriously downhill if they do raise it - hundreds of thousands - if not millions - will lose their jobs and prices will most likely go up 20%+ to cover the raise.

 

I do not know the solution, but Thailand is cheap and that probably feeds into their exports - double their costs and those exports will be bought elsewhere. With the baht high and prices rising if min wage up, Thailand looks more unappealing.  

 

[Ricardo]

Last time the rate was increased, B300/day or B15k/month for all graduates, many people didn't actually receive it, and some still don't.

 

The same thing would happen again this time.

 

That said, it's a few years now since that major increase, and it is definitely overdue for another reasonable increase.

 

One thing that all Thai-governments need to educate people about, is that increases need to be earned, through efficiency-gains or slimming-down work-forces.  I am happy to pay my gardener B420/day on a five-day week, instead of B350/day on a six-day week, but he'll have to do the same amount of work for it, and not get caught snoozing behind-the-bushes so often !

 

Now that's not going to go down well.  But it remains true, nevertheless.

[NCC1701A]

2 hours ago, Genmai said:

Remnants of a degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery, spicy soups that burn my ass and wooden frogs that make funny sounds just aren't going to cut it unfortunately.  

a great and serious epic rant!

 

but, this part made me laugh so hard I had to take a break from my "degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery" for a few minutes.

 

[Genmai]

56 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

a great and serious epic rant!

 

but, this part made me laugh so hard I had to take a break from my "degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery" for a few minutes.

 

Glad you liked my arrogant rant.

Just to clarify, I have nothing against people indulging in the degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery. It's just that I find myself asking what Thailand really has to offer other than that to young dudes like myself who have 0 interest in whoring.

[Bluespunk]

Double it at least. 

[Pdaz]

Can imagine the mama shops and noodle vendors already rubbing rubbing their hands.

Considering that most of the skilled ( in their eyes ) tradesmen ( no sniggering ! ) that I have had pass through my doors in the last 5 years weren't worth 300 hundred a day. Upping the minimum wage for factory workers and the semi skilled to 6 or 700 baht with be the death. Prices will have to rise and many will have to be laid off.

They simply aren't worth that sort of money. 

[Chris Lawrence]

Now they are educated this is what happens. They open their eyes and mouths. A dangerous thing this education, it can empower the masses.

[tbthailand]

Companies which claim that they are unable to pay $20 per day for a full day's work are lying through their teeth and, if they do go out of business, then they also deserve to go out of business. 

 

Because they are run by Morons.

[HerbalEd]

16 hours ago, Genmai said:

"He suggested that the appropriate minimum wage should be between 600-700 baht as he called on all parties concerned to sit down to discuss minimum wage."

 

     

If this utterly insane proposition goes through then it will be the final nail in the coffin of foreign investment. As a young entrepreneur who has moved here to start an arts & crafts company that employs uneducated locals full-time for non-strenuous manual labour work I can say that while this proposition looks good on the surface it will ultimately be the death of uneducated Thais in the lower socio-economic strata. Many Thais already struggle to obtain the necessary tools or mental aptitudes that can allow them to create something of value in the vicinity of 300 THB daily. As an employer I now have to raise that bar even higher. This means that apart from being able to simply work with their hands anyone I hire now has to be able to also recite poetry, fix computers, design catalogues and make spreadsheets for clients. In an industry that is constantly competing with cheap mass-produced products this wage increase would mean that my company's already expensive hand-made goods would be priced entirely out of the market. I cannot automate because my products are made entirely by hand and thus depend on a low labour wage. I cannot cut into my own profits because there simply aren't any. We are a new business and have been burning through our savings while working 80 hour work weeks for over a year. To put it short - this would put us out of business overnight. 

 

Now, we would not mind paying 600-700 THB if we could find sensible multi-skilled driven individuals with a good work ethic and a healthy determination to succeed. But we all know that Thailand's education system fails spectacularly at creating such individuals. Not only that but not everyone has the drive to obtain a higher education and become a specialist in some field. Some people just want to take it easy, watch bananas grow and take occasional contract work. Some are hard-working unskilled women that want to supplement their husband's income. These people (who make up a large portion of the population) will now be out of a job because employers will not be able to pay them 600-700 THB. This wage increase could work if there was already a large pool of highly-skilled specialists, but right now no such pool exists. Perhaps it could work if the wage increase would only apply to those with university degrees, but again, the education system needs to be completely overhauled first.

 

On top of that there are all the institutional difficulties that a foreigner faces when starting a business in Thailand. From the moment of initiating company registration it took me almost a year to obtain my work permit. Inane stacks of paperwork, constantly moving goalposts, inconsistent requests and responses from officials, as well as endless trips to the immigration where a maximum of 5 work-permit related requests are processed each day. I was lucky - during summer you only have to que up from 5AM, as opposed to winter when people supposedly have to come to take the que at midnight the day before. Just to submit a few papers. And now that everything is supposedly above board I am never quite safe. There are ample stories of foreigners being arrested by undercover police who catch them in the act of carrying crates of potatoes into their kitchen or operating a cash register in the absence of Thai staff at their own establishments, their crime being "carrying out work that falls outside of their position as stated in their work permit". Whenever an ominous black pick-up parks near our house I have to stop whatever I am doing and sit in front of my computer for fear of someone taking a photo of me washing my dishes or cleaning the floor of my house as that could land me in prison since it is manual work that could be done by a Thai person.

 

I won't bother with going into the details of the nuances of Thai people's cultural characteristics which drive me up the wall and cause considerable damage to my business through carelessness and irresponsibility. Or the fact that even if I supply all of the funding I will never legally own more than 49% of my business. Or how I have to dance around regulations that prohibit foreigners from performing the myriad of tasks designated "for Thais only". Even without mentioning those things the question still has to be asked: what does Thailand have to offer to foreign investors when the low minimum wage disappears? The answer is: not much, especially when a country like Vietnam is right around the corner.

 

While Thailand spends a much larger amount of money on its education system it consistently gets placed at the bottom rankings in terms of results. While the EF English Proficiency Index places Thailand at #56 out of 70 countries with a "Very Low" score Vietnam is placed at #31 with a "Moderate" score. This is despite the Gross National Income per capita of Vietnam being one third of Thailand's and despite the fact that Thailand has been the top destination for international tourism for a very long time. The latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that evaluates the quality and efficiency of different countries' education systems places Thailand close to the bottom (amongst countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Albania and Mexico) and Vietnam close to the top (amongst countries like Canada, Hong Kong and Macao) for achievements in virtually every area of academics. Vietnam is also #1 in the world for rate of wealth creation, outpacing countries like China, India and Kenya, which means there is a rapidly growing class of consumers with great purchasing power. With a higher percentage of Internet Penetration (48.3% vs Thailand's 34.9%) more of the population can access online marketplaces and connect digitally. The requirements and processes for obtaining an investor visa in Vietnam are no-where near as draconic as they are in Thailand. The World Economic Forum in its Competitive Rankings gives Thai infrastructure a rating of 4.4 with a downward trend and Vietnamese infrastructure a rating of 3.9 with a strong upward trend. Research carried out by the Boston Consulting Group in 2015 found that "Vietnam is on par with countries like Japan, Germany and Australia in its ability to convert wealth into well-being". Thailand with its much higher GDP is given a much lower rating in this ability. Then you have their history of being colonized by a European nation, their young (and mostly good-looking) population, a far healthier diet with plenty of raw greens, cheap beer, a lower cost of living, internationally renowned work ethic and an absence of a government that gets overthrown every couple of years and has their constitution promptly shredded up. And to top it all off, an absolutely crucial thing for companies involved in product manufacturing - a minimum wage that is a fraction of what these Thai labour unions are proposing. 

 

There is simply no way that Thailand can undergo this wage increase and retain companies like mine that depend on manual labour. Not when much better options exist next door. Those are not just my words, it is exactly what my Thai partner said when I read her this article. Sorry Thailand, 300 THB is the best thing you had going for you. Remnants of a degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery, spicy soups that burn my ass and wooden frogs that make funny sounds just aren't going to cut it unfortunately.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think you doth protest too much. Who are you trying to convince -- us or yourself?

[fforest1]

13 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

Double it at least. 

Half it at least....

[Bluespunk]

1 minute ago, fforest1 said:

Half it at least....

Nah, on reflection, triple it. 

 

Sod it all...1000baht a day. 

[Rancid]

It is always a bit of a tightrope re minimum wage, companies need to remain profitable and yet economies also depend on consumer spending. Then toss into that housing bubbles where the cost of buying/renting is going up and that includes commercial rents, higher commercial rents mean either lower profits and fewer shops or higher cost of goods/services sold.

 

The only balance that seems to work is a trade off of higher wages for higher productivity, there again in countries like Thailand we also have a lot of dead weight management buying degrees or getting the job through nepotism that also want to be well paid. Often companies are not stream lined or well run but rather rely on government barriers to entry to keep them going. Is that the workers fault?

 

Good points raised in many posts, that of robotics coming also relevant to both Thailand and everywhere else, big potential social changes may be coming.

[PAIBKK]

Hire a robot.

• Don't complain
• Don't make mistakes
• Don't sleep during work
• Don't play with their phones all day
• Never late
• Never sick
• Work 24 / 7

[Prairieboy]

23 hours ago, billd766 said:

Secondly a big part of the wage problem is the over staffing in many places. For example I bought a circular saw blade for 210 baht at a HomePro shop in Nakhon Sawan on Thursday

I agree - The Home Pro Shop in Ubon Ratchathani is the same - a bunch of 'customer service' representatives following one around like ants after sugar.  But you ask them a question and they have no knowledge and always need to call a supervisor.  It seems they are watching to see that you don't steal anything - creepy at best!

 

[loong]

10 hours ago, tbthailand said:

Companies which claim that they are unable to pay $20 per day for a full day's work are lying through their teeth and, if they do go out of business, then they also deserve to go out of business. 

 

Because they are run by Morons.

What do you base this knowledge on?

[tbthailand]

44 minutes ago, loong said:

What do you base this knowledge on?

a lifetime of business experience. 

[Golden Triangle]

23 hours ago, Genmai said:

"He suggested that the appropriate minimum wage should be between 600-700 baht as he called on all parties concerned to sit down to discuss minimum wage."

 

     

 

There is simply no way that Thailand can undergo this wage increase and retain companies like mine that depend on manual labour. Not when much better options exist next door. Those are not just my words, it is exactly what my Thai partner said when I read her this article. Sorry Thailand, 300 THB is the best thing you had going for you. Remnants of a degenerate sex tourist culture of debauchery, spicy soups that burn my ass and wooden frogs that make funny sounds just aren't going to cut it unfortunately.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its very difficult to be able to comment constructively on your post as we don't know what it is that you manufacture, is it a consumable item that people will return to repurchase or some Arty Farty one off handmade object to sit on someones mantle piece ? How many people do you employ ?  How much do the ingredients or components for this marvellous product cost ? How much does it retail for ? What was in your business plan ? Have you considered out sourcing the manufacturing to homeworkers ? (They will normally work for less and at their convenience) 

 

To be able to give constructive feedback we need to know, I'm not being picky or trying to be funny or score points, I am genuinely interested.

 

   

[YetAnother]

On 9/9/2017 at 0:36 PM, billd766 said:

I do agree that 300 baht per day is pitiful and many people have problems living on that.

 

To go from 300 to 6 or 700 baht a day is a laudable thing but brings with it new problems.

 

Firstly no employers can really afford a doubling of the wage packets without a corresponding doubling of the work rate and doubling of the efficiency.

 

Secondly a big part of the wage problem is the over staffing in many places. For example I bought a circular saw blade for 210 baht at a HomePro shop in Nakhon Sawan on Thursday. I counted 10 people behind the cash tills and admin area and at least 5 staff out on the shop floor. and I didn't all over the shop but only to one section.

 

There was only one other customer that I saw, so how can they make any money or profit on 210 thb?

 

Another example is Global House where there are dozens of staff but very few who actually know their stuff, let alone speak English (a minor consideration).

 

The electricity bills alone for those businesses must be enormous not to mention staff wages, even at 300 thb/day.

 

My neice graduated from UNi several years ago and despite the governments promises of a minimum guantanted salary of 15,000 thb per month she could only get 13,000. She quit that job for another and still didn't get a rise. Now she works for herself and makes a lot more money.

 

When robotics are really introduced into Thailand there will be many under educated Thais losing their jobs. I wonder if their will be a Thai version of Luddites coming along?

 

If the nation wage is doubled then the cost of living will be doubled at least and then another pay rise will be needed in a viscous circle.

 

I have no answer to the problem.

when the relatively new global house moved into my city, i noticed the same remarkably high worker to customer ratio; asking one of my smarter thai friends, he said that these giant companies have to make an agreement with the local authorities to keep a certain number of local people working

[zig]

23 hours ago, Prairieboy said:

I agree - The Home Pro Shop in Ubon Ratchathani is the same - a bunch of 'customer service' representatives following one around like ants after sugar.  But you ask them a question and they have no knowledge and always need to call a supervisor.  It seems they are watching to see that you don't steal anything - creepy at best!

 

Few years ago I read that some government regulations in Thailand actually require that the malls hire a certain number of staff based on the size of the shopping area. This was mentioned as the reason for the overstaffing that we often see in many malls.