A 44-year-old man, Sarawut Srisawat, who worked at a Thailand news channel Thai News Network, reportedly died at his work desk on 4 February after being overworked.
The company said in a leaked internal circular that they will be compensating his family, detailing their compensation plans for them.
BBC Thai reported that Sarawaut’s death was picked up by a Facebook page called Screen Off, which described how the man, who worked as a senior officer at the news channel, allegedly worked for 7 days in a row for weeks.
The man was a senior staff member of the company with 17 years of experience, and he was the sole person in charge of overseeing the program schedules of two of the network’s main channels.
Therefore it was difficult for him to find other suitable and qualified colleagues to stand in for him.
Even when he was on sick leave, the news channel still called him back to work to help produce programme charts for them.
In the leaked internal circular, it was revealed that Sarawut had died at his work desk of a heart attack, and he was only discovered to be dead the next day after a cleaner noticed him in an unusual position.
CPR was performed on him in an attempt to resuscitate him but it was too late, he had already died.
According to Thailand’s labour laws, working hours shouldn’t exceed more than 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.
The Thai Minister of Labour, Suchart Chomklin, has since ordered an investigation into Sarawut’s cause of death, with the Labour Protection Department also investigating if he was given at least one off-day per week as required under the law.
They are also looking into if he had been forced to work overtime.
The Thai labour Protection and Welfare Department and the Social Security Office are also working to make sure that his family will receive all the compensation that they are due, which is a
- 50,000 baht (S$2,000) funeral subsidy,
- compensation of 70% of his salary monthly for 10 years, and
- pension payments from the Social Security Office if the investigation deems that he was indeed killed by being overworked.
Images source: BBC Thai