Services / Labour and employment
Unpaid wages and overtime, and the time limit
These claims turn on evidence of the hours actually worked, not on whether the employer admits them. Records kept while still employed are worth far more than anything reconstructed afterwards.
The time limit
Section 193/34(9) of the Civil and Commercial Code sets a two-year limitation period for an employee's claim for wages or other remuneration, whether the employee is permanent, temporary or daily-rated, and including apprentices. That is a deadline that genuinely extinguishes the claim, which is why unpaid wages should not be left to sit.
The two routes
The first is a complaint to the labour inspector, which costs nothing and carries the power to order the employer to pay. The second is proceedings in the Labour Court. Each has its advantages, with one caution: once a complaint on a given claim is before the inspector, the same claim cannot be run in court at the same time; the outcome has to come first. The choice is therefore best made at the outset, on a view of the whole matter.
Evidence that actually works
Clock-in records are the best evidence and usually sit with the employer. What an employee can keep is the shift roster, overtime approvals, instructions to work outside hours, emails sent late at night, and photographs of the rota posted at the workplace. Payslips matter too, because they show the overtime rate previously paid, which can be set against the months where nothing was.
Keep the whole conversation
Messages between the parties are usable evidence, but keep the conversation whole rather than only the helpful part. The other side generally has the full thread already, and an extract chosen for advantage damages the credibility of the entire set.
PREPARE
What to bring
- Payslips as far back as you have them
- The roster or work schedule
- Overtime approvals and instructions to work outside hours
- Clock-in records so far as you can obtain them
- The contract and the work rules
QUESTIONS
Questions this raises
I left more than two years ago. Can I still claim?
A claim for wages carries a two-year limitation period under section 193/34(9) of the Civil and Commercial Code, but the point from which time runs is not identical for every sum, and there are events that interrupt the running of time. A claim that looks time-barred is worth having the facts checked before it is written off.
My employer says monthly-paid staff get no overtime. Is that right?
Being paid monthly does not by itself remove the entitlement. What matters is the nature of the work and the position actually held, because the Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998) excepts certain kinds of employee, not certain methods of payment. An argument resting on the payment method alone carries no real weight.
LAW
The legislation
- Civil and Commercial Code, section 193/34(9)
- Labour Protection Act B.E. 2541 (1998)
- Act on Establishment of Labour Courts and Labour Court Procedure B.E. 2522 (1979)
ENQUIRIES
