Prevent runaway legal costs with Labor Department complaint?

[SbuxPlease]

Looking for suggestions... anyone who's had to work with the labor department before.

 

A former employee makes a frivolous complaint about being terminated without enough final pay (we axed him after 3-days no show and the attorney agrees that we paid him fairly per Thai labor law), labor department sends a letter to us calling for a meeting the following week. We send our attorney to the meeting at 6k THB/hour * 3 hrs + expenses. Employee fails to show, meeting is rescheduled.

 

Next meeting, employee fails to show again, the labor officer calls the employee, sets a third meeting. The attorney now wants another top-up of the retainer, so we are now about 55k THB+ deep for the attorney to attend 3 useless meetings and the issue appears to still be unresolved and possibly not even close since the former employee won't cooperate in the process by showing up.

 

And now, a second employee, who left at the same time as the first, begins another frivolous case at the labor department, we get another letter, another demand for a labor department meeting. We know the two teamed up together to scam the company because we have a copy of a LINE group chat where they say they will do exactly this - leave and never come back.

 

We've already presented the group chat evidence to the labor department, video camera footage showing they actually aren't there, and copies of the bank transfers for payroll showing they were accurate. I think it's everything we could possibly offer to show we're right.

 

So my questions:

 

-is there any sense at all in sending a real attorney to these labor department meetings? I feel like it's not a good use of company money, but also sending a company officer is a very bad use of time.

-is there some way to fight back? Require something substantial from the employee? Call their bluff? It feels like we have no power and these employees have no repercussions or penalties for lying to the labor department. Is that really the case?!?

-can't the attorney handle the matter with a quick call to the labor officer instead of in-person meetings?

 

 

 

 

 

[Rc2702]

Sounds like you should be there at the labor department. If this has happened twice so far and you have spent 55k baht and got absolutely no where. Sounds  too trusting of the attorney too. Sounds like all you have is hear say. 

[blackcab]

We send a foreign manager and a bilingual Thai employee.

 

It's not really a matter for a lawyer as there is no real legal argument. You present your facts and the Labour Court decides.

 

It's really just a case of whether the staff time costs more than the lawyer's time.

[SbuxPlease]

11 hours ago, blackcab said:

We send a foreign manager and a bilingual Thai employee.

 

It's not really a matter for a lawyer as there is no real legal argument. You present your facts and the Labour Court decides.

 

It's really just a case of whether the staff time costs more than the lawyer's time.

This is actually really good to know, I was unaware so assumed we needed to be prepared with legal assistance. So if the labor officer were to decide against us, is there a recourse with the court should we believe he was inattentive to the facts? I'm imagining that the labor officer's decision is more of a recommendation that could later be enforced by the court?

 

Either way, we're getting schooled right now! ? But you gotta learn somehow.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

 

[blackcab]

With first stage mediation neither party has to accept. The Court always tries this way first to save Court time. Chances are your ex employees won't accept as it costs them nothing to push on.

 

If either party does not accept then the matter goes to a formal hearing. My advice would be to pay whatever is ordered by the Court at this point (if anything), because any appeal would cost massively more than any payout to a Thai worker.

 

Please keep us updated. These cases are an invaluable resource for others to read at a later date.

[SbuxPlease]

33 minutes ago, blackcab said:

With first stage mediation neither party has to accept. The Court always tries this way first to save Court time. Chances are your ex employees won't accept as it costs them nothing to push on.

 

If either party does not accept then the matter goes to a formal hearing. My advice would be to pay whatever is ordered by the Court at this point (if anything), because any appeal would cost massively more than any payout to a Thai worker.

 

Please keep us updated. These cases are an invaluable resource for others to read at a later date.

 

Sure, I'm more than happy to keep the forum updated with how this plays out. I too wish there were more reports out there from Thailand business owners in my position.

 

If the costs for the employees to press forward is low or nothing, what is the reason for the court to do the job on their behalf? It's great they get a fair shake at representation against us "bad guy" business owners, but what's to slow down a disgruntled employee who's abusing the system?

 

At what stage would he or she begin to incur legal costs that would test their desire to stand behind their claims?

 

 

 

[blackcab]

22 minutes ago, SbuxPlease said:

If the costs for the employees to press forward is low or nothing, what is the reason for the court to do the job on their behalf? It's great they get a fair shake at representation against us "bad guy" business owners, but what's to slow down a disgruntled employee who's abusing the system?

 

At what stage would he or she begin to incur legal costs that would test their desire to stand behind their claims?

 

The thing is that Thai businesses don't normally incur legal costs because the don't send a lawyer. They just send a more senior Thai member of staff.

 

The Court doesn't just do the job on the employee's behalf - you misunderstand the process. From a Western perspective a Court is an adversarial arena where those with the best argument and cleverest use of legal precedent often win.

 

It's not like that here. Because the Court sometimes deals with fairly uneducated employees and also employers, the Court asks the facts from all sides, then makes it's decision.

 

There is no legal argument because the law is remarkably clear.

 

What slows down a disgruntled employee? Not much, but these cases are finalised in weeks, not months or years. For most businesses the cost is minimal and that's just the way it is.

 

When are costs incurred? When either party decides to hire a lawyer. The employee may not get a payout, but they will have the satisfaction of knowing you had to pay out.

[SbuxPlease]

1 hour ago, blackcab said:

 

The thing is that Thai businesses don't normally incur legal costs because the don't send a lawyer. They just send a more senior Thai member of staff.

 

The Court doesn't just do the job on the employee's behalf - you misunderstand the process. From a Western perspective a Court is an adversarial arena where those with the best argument and cleverest use of legal precedent often win.

 

It's not like that here. Because the Court sometimes deals with fairly uneducated employees and also employers, the Court asks the facts from all sides, then makes it's decision.

 

There is no legal argument because the law is remarkably clear.

 

What slows down a disgruntled employee? Not much, but these cases are finalised in weeks, not months or years. For most businesses the cost is minimal and that's just the way it is.

 

When are costs incurred? When either party decides to hire a lawyer. The employee may not get a payout, but they will have the satisfaction of knowing you had to pay out.

 

Fascinating, thank you for the information. You are right, I do misunderstand the Thai process.

 

I'll send one of my Thai staff instead and hope we can calm things down by presenting what we know.

 

In a similar situation in the the west we might reveal to the opposing party some of the evidence in our favor to get them to back away, or to at least cough up a claim with substance. We'd point to the specific law and show why we think we're right, and if they had something they might do the same, and we could discuss an outcome based on the facts. It would appear the labor officer has no such power to compel discovery or force either side to comply with his requests unless things move deeper into the court.

 

[blackcab]

26 minutes ago, SbuxPlease said:

I'll send one of my Thai staff instead and hope we can calm things down by presenting what we know.

 

Set absolute boundaries, such as you must be contacted and agree any compromise.

 

26 minutes ago, SbuxPlease said:

In a similar situation in the the west...

 

Stop thinking like that. It will drive you nuts.

 

26 minutes ago, SbuxPlease said:

It would appear the labor officer has no such power to compel discovery or force either side to comply with his requests unless things move deeper into the court.

 

Stage 1 is mediation. There is no compulsion to agree, however they can demand employment records, etc. Clearly, the burden of most demands falls on the employer.

[SbuxPlease]

Just thought I'd post an update to this. It seems like we've mostly prevailed in the case.

 

We've now been to 4 meetings and so far the former employees have failed to show every time. This has really been to our advantage because we have had a voice and the former employees do not.

 

@blackcab's advice has been correct - the first stage of being summoned to labor court with a letter is just non-binding mediation. You don't need an attorney at this stage and it is probably a complete waste of money (see my original post). After I learned this we sent a Thai manager and a foreign manager (you'll need a Thai speaker) armed with lots of data - computer access logs, print outs of chats, anything and everything in your favor to show you run a tight ship.

 

The labor officer seemed to be fair in reviewing the facts, although we had to press the officer to concede that 4 scheduled meetings is plenty of time for them to show up if they truly believe they have a case. If I'd have let our lawyer continue with this, who knows if he'd have attempted to do wrap things quickly as he gets to bill for every meeting! We had followed the letter of the law in every case so we were able to show this. I think if we'd made a mistake with that, it would have been more difficult for us to overcome those issues since they seem to give disgruntled employees the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proving everything - even proving negatives - fell to us.

 

In short I would say the labor department experience was fair even though employees are given a very wide berth. It's overall a big waste of time that disgruntled employees can cause for a business, but as long as you are morally and technically right with your HR processes I think it's not difficult to prevail. That being said, I'm unsure what we'd have experienced had they shown up and begun to lie or twist reality in front of the labor officer - it probably would have required us chasing our tails much more.

 

Anyways, all the cases were closed with no further requirements on our part. We win. Hopefully these cases aren't easily reopened; and I hope this info is helpful for some future reader!