30 Days Sick Leave For Employees?

[actiondell4]

I am just (www.bia.co.th/013.htmlt reading Chapter 9 of the Thai Labor Laws.

Quite interesting reading,and I must say that Thais have far more better Labour laws than Western Countries.

Where most Western Countries have Laws that employees must receive a minimum of paid Sick LEAVE days,usually its 8 a year,Thailand employees can benefit from 30 days.

ALSO employees becoming pregnant can receive 90 days maternity leave.

I wonder if these Laws are important to know if I was going to buy a business say in Bangkok.

[mallyrd]

Most expat employment contracts will not give 30 days sick leave. In general they vary from 6 to 10 days. I do not know of any expats who have challenged this disparity with the labour office. It would be interesting to hear from other expats on this topic.

[richardt1808]

hi,

To comment on both posts above:

Yes,of course it is important to be aware of the various labour laws here. Any business that you invest in, or purchase would of course have to abide by them.

As regards to disparity between sick leave granted to expats and Thai's - there isn't. Thai labour laws apply equally to all, irrespective of nationality. If you are working in Thailand for a Thai company, including a subsidiary, then the company has to follow Thai labour law. There was a very interesting thread about a week ago regarding notice pay in the event of dismissal/retrenchment and a number of companies have been compelled to pay out proper compensation to expats. The same would apply to the sick leave issue.

As the OP mentioned, Thai labour law is very much on the side of the employee and commissioners can and do exercise their powers without prejudice.

Edited May 15, 2010 by richardt1808

[eddthened]

You need to be very aware of the 30 days sick leave entitlement, as a (potential) business owner. A regrettable proportion of staff can have a tendency to rip the --whatever-- out of the government scheme, and see sick leave as merely an extra PTO 'entitlement'. If possible, make sure your employment contracts stipulate that any sickness of TWO or more days needs to be medically certified; we went with three days - silly us. As a direct result, we still have one clown who manages to work a four day week at best by subtle manipulation of his 'rights' - and there is not a dam_n thing we can do about it, according to our (very reputable) lawyer. Thirty days sick leave accrued over the year is obviously six working weeks lost. You have been warned.

[actiondell4]

You have the right to ask for a medical certificate for each sick day,otherwise you can stipulate no payment.

When sick leave starts to be excessive,you can write the employee a letter detailing this and requesting they have a doctors/medical certificate for each sick day they take.

Under Thai Labor Law it seems regardless, that they have the right to 30 days however im sure they need to provide evidence of sickness so always ask for a sick certificate otherwise no payment.

The second thing to do is you have the right to ask them to see your doctor to find out if they are medically fit to work.