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Unions to join Thai protest rally, but not strikes
Thai state unions voted on Tuesday to join a long-running anti-government rally but said they would only go on strike if the government used force to break up the protest.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:53 June 17, 2008
Bangkok: Thai state unions voted on Tuesday to join a long-running anti-government rally but said they would only go on strike if the government used force to break up the protest.
"The State Enterprise Labour Relations Confederation voted unanimously to join the rally," Sawit Kaewvan, head of an umbrella group of unions representing workers at 43 state firms, told reporters.
The stance by the unions, who have around 200,000 members, is another blow to the nearly five-month-old coalition government, which is having to focus much of its energy on countering the protests at a time of stagnating growth and soaring inflation.
The unions' official backing for the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) will make it that much harder for firebrand Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to take any action against the rally, which has been blocking Bangkok traffic since May 25.
The PAD - a motley collection of businessmen, academics, royalists and an ascetic army major-general - led the 2005 street campaign against then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that led eventually to his removal in a bloodless 2006 coup.
With the election in December of an avowedly pro-Thaksin government, it was only a matter of time before the PAD renewed its crusade, which it is now painting as a life-and-death struggle between royalism and republicanism.
Samak said last month he would send in soldiers and police to smash the PAD stage occupying several lanes of a major Bangkok thoroughfare, but backed off when the police and military made it clear they had no stomach for a fight.
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