Jump to content
All visa questions and fresh Immigration updates here ×

Severance Pay - Government School

AngryParent

By AngryParent
in Teaching in Thailand Forum

 Share

Recommended Posts

AngryParent Advanced Member

AngryParent

Posted
Posted (edited)

A Thai legal question:

One has been working for a government school for almost 4 years (on 1 year renewed contracts).

1. If the school does not renew the contract at the end of this contract year, will severence pay be due to me under Thai law?

2. If the school terminates before the end of the contract term will severance + notice period be due to me?

I do not see the school changing their taught courses (all classes are as before) and my classes will be taught by other existing teachers. Does this material fact affect matters?

Please, so as to assist this matter, if you have first-hand experience/knowledge say so. If you just have an opinion regarding how Thailand and employment should or not be, please state that it is only an opinion.

Thanks.

Edited by AngryParent
Link to comment
Share on other sites
thaicbr Diamond Member

thaicbr

Posted
Posted
A Thai legal question:

One has been working for a government school for almost 4 years (on 1 year renewed contracts).

1. If the school does not renew the contract at the end of this contract year, will severence pay be due to me under Thai law?

2. If the school terminates before the end of the contract term will severance + notice period be due to me?

I do not see the school changing their taught courses (all classes are as before) and my classes will be taught by other existing teachers. Does this material fact affect matters?

Please, so as to assist this matter, if you have first-hand experience/knowledge say so. If you just have an opinion regarding how Thailand and employment should or not be, please state that it is only an opinion.

Thanks.

As far as I'm aware the labor court treat 3 year successive contract terms as a full time job (not contracted) the problem you have is they are not replacing you. Just down sizing. That affects the outcome slightly. I would go and check out the labour court. They can help. The other OP as far as I'm aware. If you ask at the court they will try and provide an english speaker to help. At least where I live they do.

sent from my Wellcom A90+

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sirchai Ruby Member

sirchai

Posted
Posted
A Thai legal question:

One has been working for a government school for almost 4 years (on 1 year renewed contracts).

1. If the school does not renew the contract at the end of this contract year, will severence pay be due to me under Thai law?

2. If the school terminates before the end of the contract term will severance + notice period be due to me?

I do not see the school changing their taught courses (all classes are as before) and my classes will be taught by other existing teachers. Does this material fact affect matters?

Please, so as to assist this matter, if you have first-hand experience/knowledge say so. If you just have an opinion regarding how Thailand and employment should or not be, please state that it is only an opinion.

Thanks.

As far as I'm aware the labor court treat 3 year successive contract terms as a full time job (not contracted) the problem you have is they are not replacing you. Just down sizing. That affects the outcome slightly. I would go and check out the labour court. They can help. The other OP as far as I'm aware. If you ask at the court they will try and provide an english speaker to help. At least where I live they do.

sent from my Wellcom A90+

At least they will send somebody who's acting like he would speak English.-----w00t.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites
schondie Silver Member

schondie

Posted
Posted

This is a tricky one as you aren't being fired. If your contract isn't renewed I'm not sure where you stand under Thai Labour law.

Wrongful dissmissal would get you a nice chunk of cash but this is different. Also it's worth speaking to a lawyer to make sure you're entitled to something. Many lawyers would charge around a 1000 Baht for a consultation so it would be better to know if you're wasting your time trying for some compensation than going after something you're not going to get.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Scott Star Member

Scott

Posted
Posted

It is my understanding that the Thai Labor Laws apply to a gov't school whether you are a foreigner or a Thai. The basic question would be: What would happen to a Thai teacher in the same scenario?

If a Thai teacher would get severance pay, then I believe you would be entitled to it as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Loaded Platinum Member

Loaded

Posted
Posted

If the school can convince the labour court that your job no longer exists, I believe you cannot claim severance if you've been on yearly contracts. Contracts normally stipulate that you need to receive 1-month's notice of termination though. If you didn't receive this, it's possible you have a stronger case. The best source of reliable and accurate information is the labour office.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
somtumlion Advanced Member

somtumlion

Posted
Posted

It is my understanding that the Thai Labor Laws apply to a gov't school whether you are a foreigner or a Thai. The basic question would be: What would happen to a Thai teacher in the same scenario?

If a Thai teacher would get severance pay, then I believe you would be entitled to it as well.

Should be mentioned that the labor law doesn't cover universities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
MisterE Apprentice Member

MisterE

Posted
Posted (edited)

Well, Scott's link didn't work for me when I tried to download it direct from this forum page with a right click, Save As...

But when I used the PDF reader browser plugin it did load.

I found a post here that had a working link to the Thai Labour Law Act but I can't for the life of me find it again now. I'm glad I downloaded the PDFs when I first stumbled across them though because every other link to the Thai Labour Law Act here is dead I wanted to add the links here : http://www.thaivisa....75#entry4170065

But for some reason this thread doesn't even come up when searching this forum using the thread title copy and pasted??? Maybe it's closed or whatever, I'm new here and couldn't find how to reply.

<Dropbox links to PDFs removed>

Ahh the working links were in the footer of the PDFs.

Labour Protection Act, B.E. 2554 (1998) : http://www.ilo.org/d...19/E98THA01.htm

Labour Protection Act (No.2), B.E. 2551(2008) [Wow this site deserves a bookmark, it has everything] : www.thailaws.com

This looks interesting too : Act on the Establishment of and Procedure for Labor Court, B.E. 2522 (1979)

Hope they are helpful.

What we really need is a foreign teacher's union but I know. offtopic.gif

Edited by MisterE
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Markaew Gold Member

Markaew

Posted
Posted

Absolutely go to the Ministry of Labor. They have a history of helping foreigners. I am not sure how they compute the amount but you should be able draw some money from the school such 3 or 4 months pay with a history of contracts of 3 years. Maybe more. The school will say you can't get any money but you really should go to the M of L. It is my belief that the M of L is the only place a foreigner can get a sympathetic ear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
GarryP Platinum Member

GarryP

Posted
Posted

From my reading of the law, you are entitled to 180 days severance pay regardless that you are on 1 year contracts. The nature of your work would not fall under any of the exceptions whereby the employer does not need to pay severance. BTW I assume you are a teacher and not doing a special project for the school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
MisterE Apprentice Member

MisterE

Posted
Posted

Hi again, If you need a copy of the complete Labour Protection Law in Thai, updated to include all amendments passed since the original law was enacted in 1998, you can download it at the bottom of this page:

http://protection.labour.go.th/

It's a 64MB PDF document :( it appears someone is pretty clueless about how to make a reduced sized PDF. TIT

If there is any interest I can reduce the PDF file size and make it available for download.

Also, this page from the same site has all of the Labour Protection Laws individually here:

http://protection.labour.go.th/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=58&Itemid=5

This could be very helpful for business owners and employees who want information that is not related to teaching occupations.

Combined with the English translations at www.thailaws.com you can find the relevant sections in the Thai documents if you can read Thai numbers.

This site works very well using Google Translate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.







×
×
  • Create New...