Workers protest naked at Govt House
Bangkok Post, Thailand
Dissatisfied with the Thai government’s failure to help them receive severance pay after their garment factory closed without advance notice, 10 laid-off women workers on Tuesday stripped naked in front of Government House where Prime Minister Gen. Surayud Chulanont was meeting with the Cabinet.
About 300 labour union members workers of the Inter Moda garment factory in the Rangsit area of north suburban Bangkok have been protesting at Government House since Monday, demanding that the government step in and help them get severance pay following the closure of their company on August 26 without informing the workers.
They asked the government to pay some 24 million baht in severance pay which the company failed to give to them, and suggested the government could collect from the company.
The workers earlier blocked all entrances to Government House, causing inconvenience for government workers and visitors.
As the government kept silent in response to their demands, 10 women workers stripped. They quickly covered themselves with banners, however, and marched to a small gate of the Government House. They stood in front of the policemen while some shouted that they now had nothing and yet had to support their families.
The protesting workers later demanded that the government respond to them by September 19.
Less than a kilometre away, 1,000 demonstrators from the eastern resort of Rayong province gathered at the Ministry of Education to hand over a letter to the prime minister protesting the rumoured plan to build a coal-powered electrical power plant by IRPC Public Co. Ltd.
They said they had gathered more than 15,000 signatures of Rayong residents who opposed building the plant.
They threatened to rally again Saturday in Rayong and would wait for a reply by the government. (TNA)
