THAI sued for unfair dismissal of president

BANGKOK, June 21 (TNA) - Piyasvasti Amranand, former president of Thai Airways International (THAI), has filed a lawsuit with the Central Labour Court to sue the national airline for unfairly dismissing him before the end of his employment contract on July 11, 2013, demanding about 10 million baht in compensation or reinstatement. Piyasvasti told journalists Thueday that his lawsuit is aimed to set management standard and to promote good governance in Thai state enterprises, especially THAI, which is a listed firm on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and whose shares belong to people and private parties, apart from the Ministry of Finance. Piyasvasti insisted that, as a listed company, THAI cannot be supervised in the same manner as other state enterprises in the country, reasoning that THAI's decisions need to be based on national interest. Piyasvasti dismissed a claim by the THAI board that it had to end his term because it had communication problems with him and he posed a problem to a project to acquire a new fleet of 38 airplanes, saying that in the past evaluation of his performances was based on key performance indicators in which he made an impressive 87 per cent score and THAI posted a profit of 3.6 billion baht in the first quarter of this year while other airlines faced losses. The outgoing THAI president declined to say whether his dismissal was politically motivated, maintaining that the chair of the THAI board is to answer the question instead and giving his comments that lobbying was returning to the national airline by citing the THAI's board latest resolution that the appointment of new top 200 positions in the national airline recently only required its approval, the practice of which would ruin good governance and the morale of good employees in the national flag carrier. The Central Labour Court has set the first hearing of the case at 1pm on July 24. Meanwhile, leader of the THAI labour union Jaemsri Sukchoterat led airline employees to give morale support to Piyasvasti at the court. (TNA)