Published on July 16, 2005

The Bangkok wage committee has voted unanimously to increase the daily minimum wage of unskilled workers by Bt6 and set the new amount at Bt175.

The National Wage Committee will convene a meeting on Monday to consider whether to approve the decision of the committee along with wage committees from other provinces, said Jarupong Ruangsuwan, permanent secretary at the Labour Ministry.

Jarupong, who chairs the National Wage Committee, said that so far 20 provincial committees had sent in proposals for increases ranging from Bt2 to Bt8.

Prachuap Khiri Khan province sought the highest increase of Bt8.

The committee’s decisions will be sent to Labour Minister Sora-at Klinpratoom for signing and put to the Cabinet for endorsement so as to come into force at the beginning of next month.

Khunying Natthanon Thawee-sin, who chairs the wage committee, said the panel spent about three hours considering economic factors before voting on the Bt6 increase.

She said the panel comprised five employers’ representatives, four workers’ representatives and five government representatives.

The employers’ side initially wanted to allow a Bt5 increase based on the inflation rate in Bangkok, 3.1 per cent.

But the government and employees argued that rising oil and consumer-goods prices needed to be taken into account as well.

“Eventually the employers agreed to go with a Bt6 increase. It’s good that a compromise was reached,” Natthanon said.

In a related development, a labour expert warned that factory bosses might take advantage of the minimum-wage dispute to lay off workers en masse. “We witnessed this kind of exploitation during [the] 1997 [economic crisis]. It especially affected those who were union members,” Bundit Thanachai-saettawuth of the Arom Pongpangan Foundation said.

Bundit said it was not fair to keep the minimum wage at Bt175 a day when the minimum monthly salary for government officials was being raised to Bt7,000.

The minimum wage for government officials means they will get Bt233 a day, the new minimum wage demanded by the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee (TLSC), an umbrella organisation representing 30 labour groups.

Employers’ associations insist that any rise should at most Bt5 a day, meaning the minimum wage would be raised to Bt180 a day, significantly below the Bt233 demanded by the unions.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra suggested earlier this week that the minimum wage should be raised to cope with higher oil prices and inflation but stopped short of naming a figure.

TLSC chairwoman Vilaiwan Sae-tiew, who will lead a mass demonstration of at least 10,000 workers on Monday to demand a Bt233 minimum wage, said employers should look beyond their own self-interest instead of merely claiming their businesses would run at a loss if the minimum wage were raised to Bt233.

“The government wants to give just a Bt5 raise, but transportation costs are rising, and even the price of a can of fish is going up Bt3,” she said.

Damrongphan Jaihao,

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

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