Employee Dispute

[Zen]

i got a part time employee who was converted to full time on 1 Nov 2008 and my company contributes his social security. Unfortunately we did not make him sign a contract. Everything was verbal. Even the warnings given to him when he made mistakes or had bad behaviour etc were all only verbal. We reduced his salary on 1 Oct 2009 but nothing improved so we removed him as full time staff on 30th Oct 2009 coz of his bad behaviour. And let him work as part time for 10days in NOV. But he is demanding severence pay. Since i have nothing in black n white, only salary slips of the past 1 year, am i at the losing end 100%?

[way2muchcoffee]

I suspect you are at the losing end. Where I work we are very careful when terminating employment. Verbal warnings are documented. Written warnings are given and signed by both parties. The employee then must be given time to correct the deficiencies. When improvements are not made, and only after these steps have been meticulously followed can a termination proceed.

Edited December 12, 2009 by way2muchcoffee

[thaiphoon]

There is a process to go through with written warnings/notifications as defined under the Labour Protection Act 1998. You can find details on Severence Pay starting on page 51 of the English translation of this law here:

http://www.mol.go.th/download/laborlaw/lab...tion1998_en.pdf

[Credo]

Whether you have a contract or not, when you hire someone a contract is implied. The labor laws still apply.

[Sabre]

I suspect you are at the losing end. Where I work we are very careful when terminating employment. Verbal warnings are documented. Written warnings are given and signed by both parties. The employee then must be given time to correct the deficiencies. When improvements are not made, and only after these steps have been meticulously followed can a termination proceed.

Yep, that's pretty much what is required. Thailand is very pro-employee, and the labour courts normally force an employer to pay something at least.

Even if you do everything right, and by the book, it is no guarantee that you are safe from being sued. The only way you can make sure that you will not be liable for something later on is to terminate your employees by agreement with them. And that, of course, is not always feasible.

[Hssl]

Learn from this.......... you should have a company policy which employees are given also a contact stating that they are employed under the terms and conditions of the company policy and all serious f$cks up's by employees are noted in a written warning you sign, they sign you stamp - then and only then you can fire their ar$e with no come back

[Zen]

The ironic thing is that i didnt issue him a dismissal letter.i didnt even tell him that he's fired. I juz gave him his salary cheque for the final 10days of work and deduct some money as penalty for disappearing from work for 3 days without reason. He didnt accept the deductions and he assumed i fired him, so he went to the labour department. I should be the one assuming that he has resigned since i havent seen him at work the past many days! What an irony! Ah well...seems like i'm at the losing end and have to juz pay him 3 months of his last salary (which fortunately was reduced and he signed and accepted in the last salary slip)......anyhow thanks for all the comments and i welcome more from the folks here.

[Zen]

he went to report me at the labour ministry and the ministry arranged for us to negotiate but he never turned up for the appointment....what's next?

[deejah]

on another note and without going through that large document:

if someone is on yearly contract working

and the employer doesn't want to sign the employee up for another year,

is severance pay expected or required,

and if so how much?

common sense would say no,

its a yearly contract,

but i heard otherwise,

they must have good reason to fire you and not sign you back on

otherwise the employee collects severance, na kha?

help on this would be much appreciated