ปัญหาทางกฎหมายในการทำงานล่วงเวลาตามพระราชบัญญัติคุ้มครองแรงงาน พ.ศ. 2541

Abstract

This research aims to study and analyze legal problems in working overtime under the Labor Protection Act B.E. 2541 The research found: 1) the employee is forced to work overtime without consent or without having a prior agreement with the employee, but the employer uses superior bargaining power to force the employee to work and if the employees do not comply, they may face with mistreatment in workplace; 2) the problem of inserting the phrase about the waiver of claim that the employee will not ask for overtime pay in the termination letter; 3) the problem of flat rate of overtime payment, and giving time off work instead of paying for overtime which is against the law that requires to pay in money; 4) the problem of assigning too many tasks which is impossible to accomplish and this will force the employee to continue working until the job is completed without the employer having to ask for consent and pay for overtime; 5) the problem of using cameras and video surveillance at all the time in the workplace, which is considered a violation of the employee's right to privacy; 6) the problem of ordering employees to work overtime through electronic media in which the Thai law does not provide employees with the right to disconnect, or cut off communication from employers; 7) the law does not require employers to arrange the breaks during overtime work and thus, employees are not entitled to have the time off during overtime work; 8) in the case of working in shifts, the first hour of work is not counted as the first hour of the day, and this makes the employee to lose the right to receive overtime pay; 9) the overtime pay normally must be calculated from wage as a base and this leads to a problem of spreading the base of wages by paying money in other forms rather than including in the name of wages in order to make the employees receive less overtime pay than they should receive; 10) the change of employment conditions during the epidemic leads to the problem of interpreting the law as to whether the wages should be calculated in the reduced rates. In principle, it must be based on the concept that if the wages are reduced because of the epidemic and such epidemic comes to an end, then the wages should be calculated in the normal rates.