GOODYEAR (THAILAND) PUBLIC CO. LTD., is an American multinational firm and one of the three leading manufacturers of rubber tires for cars and airplanes under the “Goodyear” brandname. Mr BK Han is currently its managing director. The company was set up on July 25, 1968 with a registered capital of 60 million baht. Since then the company has been growing and became a public company in 1994. During the first nine months of 2004, it harvested a net profit estimately valued at 240 million baht or an increase of about 50 million baht compared to the same period of the previous year. The net profit accounts for 26,74 and 32.44 baht per share in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

Despite the company’s good profits which have been derived from the hard work contributed by its workforce, there has hardly been any improvement in the workers’ terms of employment as well as in their rights and benefits. In fact, their working conditions have been deteriorating, especially for the 26 workers in the tire storage department who have been subject to a short-term or fixed period of employment contract which is to be negotiated for extension year by year. These workers have actually been employed for longer than ten years through a cascading series of contracting relationships with the company. Such contracting relationships has been made despite the fact that they have been doing the type of work which is not temporary by nature, neither is it a project nor a supplement kind of work for short-term demands. As a consequence, they have not been receiving the same rights and benefits as enjoyed by other employees under a regular employment contract.

Efforts were then made by the workers to negotiate with the company for equal rights and benefits. However, such peaceful practice to maintain good labour relations failed. Hence, 18 of them then used their legal rights in a bid to continue the fight for their due rights and benefits by filing a labour suit at the Labour Court. The company has responded by laying them off on November 16, 2005. The workers were notified in writing that the company has its plan to use contractors as their replacement in future. The retrenchment came in a sudden and not long before the yearly renewal of their employment contract is scheduled on December 31, 2005. Severence payments and the outstanding wages have been offered to 25 workers in the tire storage department. The workers have refused to take the severance payments and insisted not to accept the termination of their employment. They will persistently continue demanding their reinstatement. The dismissal is legally viewed as an unfair practice, as not only that it was made during the workers exercising their legal rights in accordance with the labour law, but also that they are actually holding an employment contract which has a fix termination date. Moreover, the use of labour contracting widely practiced by multinational enterprises is a way only to ruthlessly exploit labour. Therefore, we call on the government to proceed by all means for the reinstatement of the 25 employees of the Goodyear’s tire storage department, nullify the short-term employment contract for long-term work in order to establish work security for the respective employees, and amend the labour law to legally prohibit the contracts of labour.

The employees of the Tire Storage Department, Goodyear (Thailand) Public, Co. Ltd. 23.11.05

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Translated by Usa Tantivechkul

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