Channel 3 employees seek legal advice on ‘unfair lay-off’

[webfact]

Channel 3 employees seek legal advice on ‘unfair lay-off’

By The Nation

 

 

Some 20 editorial staff of two digital TV channels belonging to BEC World have sought advice from lawyers of the Central Labour Court about what they claim to be an unfair lay-off.

 

The laid-off employees, who were reporters and programme producers of Channel 3 Family 1 and Channel 3 SD 28, came to the court at 10 am where they met with legal experts on labour law for over an hour.

 

Police from the Bang Rak police station were dispatched to keep order at the court as reporters from several media turned out to cover the incident.

 

Worachit Triphuet, 49, a political news producer who represents the laid-off employees for the two channels, said his group had yet to file a complaint but were consulting the lawyers on how to seek justice related to their lay-off.

 

Worachit said his group have several reasons for regarding their lay-off as unfair.

 

First of all, the company did not inform the staff in advance but merely told them they were fired them before the two channels stopped broadcast. The laid-off workers were also not paid compensation in accordance with Article 118 of the labour law.

 

Worachit said the company also failed to explain to the laid-off workers about the criteria used to select the employees to be laid off. 

 

Worachit said the laid-off employees would later visit the Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications to seek advice on the issue.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30374042

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-08-01

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[Sydebolle]

Well, wondering if the TV stations would have sued if the staff would have just walked off the job - as is the modus operandi here in Thailand. Had less than 5% of the staff terminating the employment agreement according to the law; the rest was just no-show after pay day.

Irrespective of that, the Labour Protection Act covers the entire subject in their paragraph 118. Once severance (redundancy) payments have been executed they might consider suing for "unfair dismissal"; unless the staff did something wrong and the employer informed the staff about this/these mistake/s, the legal battle ground is open and the suing employees will definitely win. 

Last not least it is not a good idea to sack media people without a watertight deal; chances are that the whole story seeps into public domains faster than anyone thinks ........