Under the current economic climate employers want to be really selective in hiring new people and current employees may have to take onboard more responsibilities. For the kind of work constituting a part of the goods manufacturing process or the rendering of services, employers prefer to outsource the performance of these works to an external company.
This begs the question: Are the employees of this external company (“Outsource Company”) entitled to the same rights and benefits as the employees of the employer (“Employer”)? If the answer is Yes! this would mean that the Employer is exposed to the risk of been claimed by the employees of the Outsource Company, if these employees are not provided with the same rights and benefits as the employees of the Employer.
For example: The Employer is a company that manufactures and sells sporting clothes. The Employer needs more people to help manufacture more sporting clothes so it outsourced some of its manufacturing work to the Outsource Company. The employees of the Outsource Company help to manufacture the sporting clothes of the Employer and they worked overtime during the manufacturing process.
The employees of the Outsource Company did not receive any overtime pay for their overtime work performed. However, the employees of the Employer received overtime pay equivalent to twice their normal wage. The employees of the Outsource Company then claim the Employer for their overtime pay.
The Employer may have to pay the same overtime pay to the employees of the Outsource Company as well. This is because the work performed by the Outsource Company’s employees are work that “is part of the production process or business under the responsibility of” the Employer. Note that this is regardless of whether the Employer supervises the performance of the work or is responsible for payment of wages to the Outsource Company’s employees. These are all expressly provided by the new Paragraph 1 of Section 11/1 of the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998).
Tip
Given the provision of the new Paragraph 1 of Section 11/1, a company seeking to outsource its work should investigate and select an outsource company that can adhere to the rights and benefits of employees as provided by the labour law. Otherwise, the company may end up paying damages to employees of another company.
*Written by David Tan. David is a Lecturer of Business Law at Asian University, Chonburi, Thailand. This article was first published in the December 19, 2008 issue of the Pattaya Mail newspaper. Any questions or comments to David should be sent to blas.inter@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment