Seven employers' confederations will team up with the Federation of Thai Industries to file a petition with the Administrative Court to stop the government implementing its 300 baht daily minimum wage policy.
Representatives from the seven employers' associations yesterday met to discuss their plan.
Prasit Jong-assayakul, president of the Employers' Confederation of Thai Trade and Industry (EconThai), said the confederations would meet the FTI on Monday to set guidelines to formulate the petition.
About 100 member companies of the FTI have shown their interest to join the move, while the seven employers' confederations have mustered support from 50 companies to file the petition.
Mr Prasit said the petition would be lodged on behalf of companies as the confederations were not legally permitted to bring the charges to the court.
The petition is expected to be submitted after the new wage rise is enforced on April 1.
Earlier, some businesses had petitioned the court against the wage increase, but the court rejected their petitions, citing damage had yet to occur.
Mr Prasit said the 300 baht wage increase would adversely affect the country's economy in both short and medium terms. For instance, when the Asean Free Trade Agreement is expanded to zero tariffs on almost all goods by 2015, investors are likely to relocate their production bases to neighbouring counties such as Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia where labour is cheaper, he said.
He said the recent flooding had badly hit business operators. Many small business enterprises had gone out of business while large manufacturing firms such as Honda and Toshiba have yet to resume their production lines.
"Why doesn't [the government] repent? Unless the wage rise is reviewed, affected SME operators could not return to business and new operators will find it hard to run their businesses," Mr Prasit said.
Atthayuth Leeyavanich, secretary-general to the EconThai and a member of the tripartite Central Wage Committee, said the employers' proposal seeking postponement of the enforcement of the new wage rate from April 1 this year to Jan 1 next year would be on the national wage committee's agenda this month.
"The wage hike is not in line with the good governance principle as the wage should not be increased by 40%," he said.
Meanwhile, a group of workers from seven factories hit by last year's flooding yesterday sought help from the Labour Ministry saying they had not received their wages since October.
Sompon Puangchan, 33, leader of the Seidai Kasei (Thailand) company's labour union, said the company had neither paid wages to 159 workers nor called them to work since October. Most workers wanted a clear answer from the firm regarding their employment. If the firm wanted to terminate their work contracts, it must abide by the labour law to pay wages and compensation based on employees' service years, Mr Sompon said.
Labour Protection and Welfare Department chief Arthit Ismo said about 2,000 workers from the seven factories were expected to be affected.
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