Workers rally for hike to minimum wages

Chief of the State Enterprise Labour Relations Confederation Sawit Kaewwan led a group of 200 workers to Government House yesterday morning to demand that the minimum wage be hiked to Bt421 daily for an eighthour shift or workers be paid Bt12,000 per month. The rally lasted for about two hours causing traffic congestion.

The group wanted to submit a letter expressing their demands personally to Labour Minister Chalermchai Srion, and became upset upon learning that they could not meet the minister. They also refused to hand the letter over to the Labour Ministry spokesman Sutham Natheethong, who promised to table the request at a Cabinet meeting in a week or two. The demonstrators then marched onto the Parliament, where Chalermchai was said be busy presenting legislation.

The protesters claimed that the request was backed by a nationwide survey on workers' income and living costs in the current economic condition.

Sawit, along with Thai Labour Solidarity Committee president, Wilaiwan Saetia, also urged the government to ratify the International Labour Organisation's C87 Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Conventions and C98 Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention as it had promised before. They urged the government to table the two items at the Cabinet and the House meeting urgently because they claimed that worthwhile jobs would not be created unless the government ratified these conventions.

The group also said that on October 7 last year, they had submitted a letter requesting that the government ratify ILO's C87 and C98 conventions via Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart, who promised to push the agenda forward in three months.

Meanwhile, Police Bureau Division 1 chief Pol MajGeneral Wichai Sangprapai said he would look up the emergency decree regulations to see out if the workers' rally violated the law, which prohibits road blockage, property damage and threatening others. He said the protesters had not blocked the road as such, because motorists could still pass through. Bangkok is still under the state of emergency.