Thai Labor Law - Employee Seniority.

[magisterludi]

Hi everyone,

My Thai friend has recently overheard that his employment may be terminated and has a couple of questions about the termination which have to do with a recent change in employment terms. I would appreciate any advise for him.

The situation is as follows:

- Working full time at the same company for the past 8 years (six days per week).

- Starting this year, he asked to change from full-time to part time employment, from 6 days per week to 2 days per week. The salary was cut more or less in half.

- In order to change the employment status, he was asked to sign a resignation letter and then sign a new 3 month contract (renewable) for the new working arrangement. This agreement has since expired, but my friend has continued to work and get paid with "unbroken service".

Basically the question is whether he was tricked by the company to give away his seniority or whether seniority is established purely by "unbroken service" and the resignation letter has no effect if he continued to work in the same company for 6 months after the letter was signed.

If the seniority does continue, the other question is whether the severance pay upon termination would be calculated based on the new salary or based on some sort of calculation which takes into account the salary received until the end of last year.

I hate to see someone taken advantage of, and although it has not happened yet I would like to help my friend to be prepared for the worst.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best regards,

Magister Ludi

[GuestHouse]

He had a job, which was withdrawn and then he was offered another job at less hours under a new contract.

He's signed away his redundancy.. The <deleted> guy's will put up with to keep a job here?!

[magisterludi]

He had a job, which was withdrawn and then he was offered another job at less hours under a new contract.

He's signed away his redundancy.. The <deleted> guy's will put up with to keep a job here?!

I hope you're wrong

I was hoping that there might be some sort of provision in Thai law to prevent employers from tricking their employees into doing something like this. I know that in other countries labor law favors employees and really protects them. For example, in some countries even if you are asked to sign a contract saying you have no employee-employer relationship, the contract will be overturned in court because employee-employer relationship is something that you as an employee cannot give away (I don't know what they call it...moral or inalianable right?).

Thanks for your opinion! Lets hope there's a way for him to protect himself.

[magisterludi]

What I have been able to find so far is that according to Thai labor law:

Termination Without Cause

When there is termination without cause, it is compulsory that the employer give a written notice and make severance payment to the employee according to the length of unbroken service, as shown below.

What I'm hoping for him is that service is "unbroken" as long as the employee kept working for the company, regardless of whether a resignation letter was signed...