Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Thailand

Thammakaset Co. v. Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (14 Myanmar workers)

Supreme Court of Thailand · Thailand · 2019-01-15 · National court

Citation: [case number to be added]
Type of case: Administrative
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Must a poultry farm pay the compensation ordered by labour inspectors to 14 Myanmar workers for unpaid wages and overtime?

What the court decided

Yes. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court and ordered immediate payment of 1.7 million baht.

In plain language

Fourteen workers from Myanmar on a chicken farm in Thailand complained of very long hours, low pay and documents kept by the employer. Labour inspectors ordered compensation. The Supreme Court made the farm pay. The employer also sued workers and advocates for defamation.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Empat belas pekerja dari Myanmar di sebuah peternakan ayam di Thailand mengadukan jam kerja sangat panjang, upah rendah dan dokumen yang ditahan majikan. Pengawas ketenagakerjaan memerintahkan ganti rugi. Mahkamah Agung mewajibkan peternakan membayar. Majikan juga menggugat pekerja dan pendamping dengan tuduhan pencemaran nama baik.

Pertanyaan: Apakah peternakan ayam wajib membayar ganti rugi yang diperintahkan pengawas ketenagakerjaan kepada 14 pekerja Myanmar atas upah dan lembur yang tidak dibayar?

What happened afterwards

  • 2016: Lopburi labour office orders compensation; lower court upholds.
  • 2019-01-15: Supreme Court orders immediate payment.
  • 2019-03: Payment confirmed by the Central Labour Court.
  • later: Defamation cases brought by the farm against a worker and an advocate end in acquittal. [Check dates.]

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/th-thammakaset-2019/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

Keywords: case law; jurisprudence; judicial decisions; comparative constitutional law; courts and migration; judicial behavior; litigation outcomes; refugee law; non-refoulement; citizenship and nationality; empirical legal studies; empirical legal scholarship; quantitative legal research; statistical analysis in law; law and economics; law and economics of migration; comparative law; socio-legal studies; legal pluralism; migration law; labor migration; migrant workers’ rights; human rights law; access to justice; Global South; Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; Indonesia; open data; replication data.