Workers to petition PM Prayut on wage adjustment

[webfact]

Workers to petition PM on wage adjustment



BANGKOK: -- Workers plan to petition the prime minister on Thursday to voice their opposition to plan to adjust minimum wage in accordance with cost of living and economy in each region. They wanted the same rate or 360 baht in all regions.

This was revealed by the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia yesterday.

She said members of the labour networks nationwide will join in Bangkok to urge Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha to enforce the same minimum wage across the country.

She said TLSC has recently submitted a petition to Labour Minister Gen Surasak Kanjanarat and the Ministry of Labour’s permanent secretary, who is also a chairman of the Central Wage Committee (CWC), to consider applying the same wage of 360 baht across the country next year.

The Central Wage Committee previously said it would maintain the 300 baht minimum wage until 2015 before increasing it in the following year.

But TLSC disagreed reasoning that the rate should be the same throughout the country as more workers are struggling to cope with higher daily expenses.

However, the wage committee said the new rate would vary regionally depending on the local economy.

She said its recent survey showed that workers needed an average of 360 baht per day simply to survive.

She added that TLSC will join other labor networks on Thursday at the statue of King Rama V before walking to Government House to submit the petition to Prime Minister Prayut for consideration.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/workers-to-petition-pm-on-wage-adjustment


-- Thai PBS 2015-06-22

[LindsayBKK]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

[JOC]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

[ikke]

A wage increase of 20% will kill all labour intensive companies.

I employ 160 people, most of them get around 360 already, but a starter always starts at the minimum wage, this would mean I have to increase all wages with 20% including office and management.

If this happens I will have to move to a neighboring country in order to stay competitive in business.

[CanInBKK]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

In a word..."yes". Don't forget that if these people are employees by auto manufacturing they'll be unemployed. There are no other industries to absorb their (lack of) skills. Not to mention the impact to Thailand's GDP

[gyrosman]

Why are local issues brought to his desk, an example of the inept people who have had their fingers in the pie for decades. Time to purge nepotism.

[h90]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

1 ) Where do you see slaves?

2 ) does the life of the worker in Thailand improve if the car manufacturer moves the production to Indonesia or Myanmar?

[Equalizer]

A wage increase of 20% will kill all labour intensive companies.

I employ 160 people, most of them get around 360 already, but a starter always starts at the minimum wage, this would mean I have to increase all wages with 20% including office and management.

If this happens I will have to move to a neighboring country in order to stay competitive in business.

Not if everyone has to do the same, then it is an even playing field. In the neighboring countries the cost of living is half than it is here. 360 baht a day in this country is a disgrace. If you keep your workers happy and take a small hit yourself they will respond in a positive fashion and then your product becomes more competitive. You work for 360 baht per day for a few months and come back with your sob story then.

[chainarong]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

Low wages is the only reason international companies are in Thailand, there's no morals in the business bottom line , quite a few have left China because of wages increases , Thailand sold themselves to the devil when it went overboard and encouraged these companies to open in Thai and used their own people as the magnet and indeed they still promote low wages today , exploiting third world countries has been going on for decades , however this creates work, catch 22 then comes into play, you can't have it both ways.

[CanInBKK]

A wage increase of 20% will kill all labour intensive companies.

I employ 160 people, most of them get around 360 already, but a starter always starts at the minimum wage, this would mean I have to increase all wages with 20% including office and management.

If this happens I will have to move to a neighboring country in order to stay competitive in business.

Not if everyone has to do the same, then it is an even playing field. In the neighboring countries the cost of living is half than it is here. 360 baht a day in this country is a disgrace. If you keep your workers happy and take a small hit yourself they will respond in a positive fashion and then your product becomes more competitive. You work for 360 baht per day for a few months and come back with your sob story then.

Fortunately it doesn't work like that. Ask yourself this: if shop A and shop B both sell the exact same item, and the "all in" cost of shop A is only 80% of shop B; who would you buy from? Do you care about the happiness of shop B's employees? Edited June 22, 2015 by CanInBKK

[Tomtomtom69]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

Well I'm no expert on wage levels at automotive manufacturing companies, but I am 110% sure they are MUCH higher than the minimum wage. Only ignorant westerners with no idea think the minimum wage is given to manufacturing workers. Are you kidding? No Thai in manufacturing wakes up for much less than about 500 Baht a day. I had some agricultural processing equipment produced in Isarn and the factory that produced it said it can't get any workers to come for less than 500 Baht a day. The minimum wage is paid to cleaners, farmers and other unskilled workers. The minimum wage of course isn't always paid to some migrant workers in some industries, but it's irrelevant to high-value manufacturing like automobiles. Thailand is also no longer an ultra low wage country manufacturing textiles, so it can't get away with paying workers peanuts anymore. And let's not forget that in automotive manufacturing, a lot of the work is now done by robots. I'm quite certain that wages only make up a very small fraction of overall costs.

[Tomtomtom69]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

Low wages is the only reason international companies are in Thailand, there's no morals in the business bottom line , quite a few have left China because of wages increases , Thailand sold themselves to the devil when it went overboard and encouraged these companies to open in Thai and used their own people as the magnet and indeed they still promote low wages today , exploiting third world countries has been going on for decades , however this creates work, catch 22 then comes into play, you can't have it both ways.

Wage levels in Thailand are marginally lower than China but in some rural parts of China they are lower than Thailand still. Thailand is a good base for ASEAN and has reasonable infrastructure and supporting industries and a reasonably well educated and skilled workforce. Unless the work is highly labor intensive where wages make up the majority of the costs (as in textiles, shoe and clothing) then a modest wage increase is not going to kill off the industry. Most manufacturing workers in Thailand are getting much more than the minimum wage anyway, they are mostly semi-skilled if not skilled workers and are not going to get out of bed for less than about 500 Baht a day. Unless you are an industry insider who can give me a concrete example of a company that pays only the minimum wage - I don't think so. Sure, Thailand is promoting low wages there's no question about that...but we are talking about a modest increase in wages here. Only a highly labor intensive operation would be affected much by the min. wage increasing from 300 to 360 Baht because most industries already pay more than that. Hell, even over a year ago Thailand's largest real estate developer was paying it's cleaners (the lowest employees on the payroll) 350 Baht a day (one Cambodian maid was paid this) while the more senior Thai lady was paid 380 Baht a day. Restaurants are similarly paying 350-400 Baht a day for most servers and cashiers (chain restaurants are) this is evidenced by the ads they put up which promote wages of 10,500-12,000 Baht a month.

[smutcakes]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

JOC,

i have always found this one quite difficult to get my head around. In many places these factories are there are no jobs available or very limited anyway.

Should a Foreign Company provide jobs at a low level, but possibly a salary above or equal to other companies in the area, or do they pay massively over the local level?

If they don't employ them, then there are possibly many without work.

Has anyone thought to ask those people working there?

I would expect that multinational companies despite looking for cheap labour treat their employees far better than the average local bigwig, just on the off chance that it comes to light.

Its a Catch22 as far as I can see.

[chickenrunCM]

A wage increase of 20% will kill all labour intensive companies.

I employ 160 people, most of them get around 360 already, but a starter always starts at the minimum wage, this would mean I have to increase all wages with 20% including office and management.

If this happens I will have to move to a neighboring country in order to stay competitive in business.

Not if everyone has to do the same, then it is an even playing field. In the neighboring countries the cost of living is half than it is here. 360 baht a day in this country is a disgrace. If you keep your workers happy and take a small hit yourself they will respond in a positive fashion and then your product becomes more competitive. You work for 360 baht per day for a few months and come back with your sob story then.

Fortunately it doesn't work like that. Ask yourself this: if shop A and shop B both sell the exact same item, and the "all in" cost of shop A is only 80% of shop B; who would you buy from? Do you care about the happiness of shop B's employees?

I see many economics specialists here, does any of you know how much the part of manpower is?

normaly less than 10%, a 360 Baht minimum salary per day wouldn´t change anything,

all the companys selling their product at the price they can get not cheaper because their workers get less salery. Cars in Thailand are not cheaper than in Europe even the manpower in europe is 3 to 10 times higher in the euroopean car industrie than in Thailand

[Thai at Heart]

Does the president of the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee (TLSC) Mrs Wilaiwan Sae Tia know what the maximum wage auto manufacturers can absorb into their cost structure without forcing them to look elsewhere in Asia for labour?

And when workers lose their jobs because of companies moving elsewhere who will she/they blame?

So according to your logic, it is okay for western countries to keep slaves in the third world to produce cheap products for them??

Whatever happened to solidarity??

If the western countries want cheap products, maybe they should lower their own wage-level and produce at home!!

Well I'm no expert on wage levels at automotive manufacturing companies, but I am 110% sure they are MUCH higher than the minimum wage. Only ignorant westerners with no idea think the minimum wage is given to manufacturing workers. Are you kidding? No Thai in manufacturing wakes up for much less than about 500 Baht a day. I had some agricultural processing equipment produced in Isarn and the factory that produced it said it can't get any workers to come for less than 500 Baht a day. The minimum wage is paid to cleaners, farmers and other unskilled workers. The minimum wage of course isn't always paid to some migrant workers in some industries, but it's irrelevant to high-value manufacturing like automobiles. Thailand is also no longer an ultra low wage country manufacturing textiles, so it can't get away with paying workers peanuts anymore. And let's not forget that in automotive manufacturing, a lot of the work is now done by robots. I'm quite certain that wages only make up a very small fraction of overall costs.

Certainly not many in a car manufacturing plant. Textiles get paid by piece but normally beat 300. Food processing is pretty tight though