Phuket Lifeguards Likely Back On Duty 'By Monday'

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Phuket lifeguards likely back on duty 'by Monday'

Phuket Gazette

After two rounds of offers failed to attract a single bid to put lifeguards back on Phuket’s beaches, the Phuket Lifeguard Club has reluctantly applied to return to duty. Photo: Gazette file

PHUKET: -- The Phuket Lifeguard Club has submitted an offer to restore lifeguard services at Phuket’s key tourist beaches, an offer that is likely to be agreed to by Monday, the Phuket Gazette has learned.

The news comes after two rounds of offers by the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) to receive applications to provide the services.

Both rounds failed to elicit a single application by any organization willing to put lifeguard on Phuket’s beaches.

However, Kanyarat Senrung, an officer at the Phuket OrBorJor Tourism Department, told the Gazette, “The new contract to provide lifeguard services is now being considered by the OrBorJor council. It was submitted [on Monday] by the Phuket Lifeguard Club – the same company that provided the services before.

“I believe the decision will be made by the end of the week,” Ms Kanyarat added.

Phuket Lifeguard Club President Prathaiyut “Nut” Chuayuan told the Gazette that his organization was reluctant to return to duty, but felt obliged to make sure Phuket swimmers were offered some protection from the dangerous surf at this time of year.

“I agreed to sign the new contract with the OrBorJor because nobody else wants to do it. This is hard work with no profit,” he said.

“Since the previous contract ended on April 2, many people have kept calling me and some of my foreign friends have asked me to go back on duty.

“Even though I talked to the OrBorJor about raising the salaries for my staff, the budget for the new contract will be the same as last year – nothing has changed,” Mr Prathaiyut said.

“Normally a company is supposed to raise staff salaries each year. This helps motivate the staff. It at least cheers them up. With this budget we cannot take as good of care of our staff as we want to.

“Regardless, as I have said before, public safety is our priority. So we have agreed to sign the new contract,” he added.

Mr Prathaiyut said the earliest his lifeguards could return to patrol the beaches was Monday.

“We need to get some more equipment and do a little more staff training. We have more than 100 people in the company. If they needed us to start this week, I do not think we would be ready,” he explained.

Source: http://www.phuketgaz...ticle14975.html

-- Phuket Gazette 2012-05-16

[Lannatyne]

Shame on the OrBorJor for penny-pinching on water safety in "one of the worlds great tourist destinations".

And, what a refreshing attitude on the part of the Lifesaver guy. Good luck and best wishes to you and all your lifesaving staff.

[seabear]

Shame on the OrBorJor for penny-pinching on water safety in "one of the worlds great tourist destinations".

And, what a refreshing attitude on the part of the Lifesaver guy. Good luck and best wishes to you and all your lifesaving staff.

Do you know how much they get? How many hours they "work"?

[NomadJoe]

Sound almost like a work stoppage used to a better the bargaining position, A Mexican standoff and the workers lost. To bad they can't run things like it seems they are able to everywhere else; hire the lifeguards as full time government employees.

Edited May 16, 2012 by NomadJoe

[steelepulse]

Sound almost like a work stoppage used to a better the bargaining position, A Mexican standoff and the workers lost. To bad they can't run things like it seems they are able to everywhere else; hire the lifeguards as full time government employees.

No Mexican standoff at all.It's Thai gov't practice here is to issue one year contracts at a time, then put them back up for tender. It's kind of like how governors and police get transferred every two years under the auspices that workers will be more productive, but in reality it's a good excuse to keep passing the buck, save face, and get nothing done.

Surely the room tax paid by all visitors should have some of this money go to a central lifeguard fund. Lifeguards are the one area that shouldn't be skimped on.

Edited May 17, 2012 by steelepulse

[blackthorn2005]

Sound almost like a work stoppage used to a better the bargaining position, A Mexican standoff and the workers lost. To bad they can't run things like it seems they are able to everywhere else; hire the lifeguards as full time government employees.

No Mexican standoff at all.It's Thai gov't practice here is to issue one year contracts at a time, then put them back up for tender. It's kind of like how governors and police get transferred every two years under the auspices that workers will be more productive, but in reality it's a good excuse to keep passing the buck, save face, and get nothing done.

Surely the room tax paid by all visitors should have some of this money go to a central lifeguard fund. Lifeguards are the one area that shouldn't be skimped on.

It's local government that is responsible for this annual farce, every year over 20 people drown on Thailand's beaches. High time national government moved in and cleaned up all the shit here, including those running Patong.

[DGS1244]

After the Tsunami hit the Phuket administrators stated that the Thai navy in future would provide free life savers to the beaches, lasted about a week. TIT

[dksharron]

No reason for the Phuket government to use an outside contractor for this.

He says there is no profit in it...... My foreign friends call me to ask me to put the lifeguards back on the beach.... ....right

Let's see if the real numbers actually show up soon, and we can see the lifeguard salaries and the administration fees, and if along with the contract, there are any other benefits on the beach like concessions,

[steelepulse]

The archaic tax system in Thailand doesn't help. The central gov't only gives provinces money based on how many actual registered citizens there are, so even though Phuket ships up a lot of money to BKK ( that gets lost in a black hole) the amount of money sent down to Phuket is low, thus resulting in the tight budgets, especially after 20% tea money and 20% for "projects" and "studies"get siphoned off.

[samjaidee]

Shame on the OrBorJor for penny-pinching on water safety in "one of the worlds great tourist destinations".

And, what a refreshing attitude on the part of the Lifesaver guy. Good luck and best wishes to you and all your lifesaving staff.

Do you know how much they get? How many hours they "work"?

And the point of your question is... ?

[seabear]

Shame on the OrBorJor for penny-pinching on water safety in "one of the worlds great tourist destinations".

And, what a refreshing attitude on the part of the Lifesaver guy. Good luck and best wishes to you and all your lifesaving staff.

Do you know how much they get? How many hours they "work"?

And the point of your question is... ?

Well, the point is: How can one call it "penny-pinching" , if one doesn't know, how much they actually get paid.

[CantSpell]

The exact same thing happened already last year. Can't remember the year before...

Greed leads to 2 or 3 weeks of unattended beaches just at the beginning of low season with very high waves and dangerous rip currents.

Edited May 17, 2012 by CantSpell