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23 January, 2006
French multinational Saint-Gobain in Thailand is using contract employees as well as logistics and maintenance workers to continue a lockout at an auto-glass assembly plant in Rayong province.
After Saint-Gobain Sekurit presented, on 5 January, a pay offer that included an inferior bonus payment for 2005, some 300 workers protested outside the plant. The company locked out the workers the next day.
The plant has increased production since Saint-Gobain Sekurit gained auto-glass assembly contracts from General Motors Holden in Australia last year, a move inspired by the Howard government’s free-trade agreement with Thailand that cost 120 jobs at two Pilkington auto-glass factories. The plant also fits glass for Toyota and Ford automobiles.
Thai union members at Saint-Gobain Sekurit, affiliated with the Federation of Thailand Automobile Workers’ Unions, are facing management proposals calling for reductions in Sunday overtime pay, a reduction from five days to three on “private leave,” and extending the retirement age.