Due to the resurgence of COVID-19 in Thailand since March 2021, the Cabinet has approved new reductions in employers’ and employees’ mandatory contributions to the Social Security Fund (SSF). Contribution rates will be calculated as a percentage of each employee’s monthly wages, based on a minimum and maximum monthly wage that will be confirmed in the formal regulation published in the Government Gazette. Effective May 18, 2021, the new contribution rates for mandatory SSF contributions approved by the cabinet are as follows: From June 1 to August 31, 2021 From September 1, 2021, onward The approval of the cabinet will now be considered by the Office of the Council of State. Thereafter, the new regulation will be published in the Government Gazette before formally coming into effect. For more information on this issue, or any other aspect of labor law in Thailand, please contact Chusert Supasitthumrong at +66 2056 5793 or [email protected].

Attorneys from Tilleke & Gibbins’ offices in Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam have contributed chapters on labor law in these jurisdictions to the Global Employment Law Guide, published by Lex Mundi. The guide provides answers to key employment-related legal questions in 57 jurisdictions around the world, with all entries provided by member firms in the global Lex Mundi legal network. Each chapter contains in-depth information on the jurisdiction’s legal framework governing employment relationships, including coverage of the following topics: Employment categories and contract types Employee rights and protections Employment termination Leave and social benefits Restrictive covenants COVID-19 vaccination mandates and post-pandemic workplace reopening Readers can browse the contributions, generate country-specific reports, and compare attorney-client privilege in multiple jurisdictions. For more information, please visit the Lex Mundi website.

The one-year extension to the Personal Data Protection Act is a welcome temporary relief for businesses impacted by the third wave of Covid-19.

Maintaining positive employee relations is a top concern for virtually all companies. Many companies in Thailand—especially those located in the country’s industrial estates—have labor unions, while others rely on other non-union pathways for attending to the concerns of employees. In all of these cases, the union or collective group of employees also chooses members of the “employee committee” that is charged with fostering good relations and open communications with the employer through regular meetings dedicated to discussion of workplace matters. Companies with a workforce of 50 or more employees need to understand the roles of the employee committee and the specific rights accorded to the committee members, which are different from the rights of the other employees. Besides the obvious benefits that this understanding has for relations with their employees, it is also important if an employer takes disciplinary action against employee committee members, as violation of a committee member’s rights could result in the employer facing criminal penalties. The legal basis for these employee committees is the Labor Relations Act B.E. 2518 (LRA), which stipulates that in any workplace with at least 50 employees, the employees or their labor union of the business establishment is entitled to establish an employee committee. Members are elected (or, in the case of a labor union, appointed) to three-year terms on the committee, with the total number of committee members depending on the size of the workforce, as shown in the table. Membership Requirements Among partially unionized workforces, labor unions are generally given precedence when it comes to control of the committee. If a labor union whose members account for more than 20% of the total employees in a workplace, the union gets to appoint the majority of the employee committee members (e.g., four out of a seven-person committee, five of a