Sawit Kaewvarn, president of the State Railway Union of Thailand, and 12 other national and local union leaders faced three years in prison for their role in organising a railway safety campaign. They were convicted of omission of duties and sentenced to three years in prison in October 2020. They appealed the verdict and were freed on bail but one year later were waiting for a final ruling.
Sawit is also head of the State Enterprises Workers’ Relations Confederation, the largest body of trade unions in Thailand. The case against him dated back to 2009 when seven passengers were killed, and dozens more injured, after a train derailment. It was the third derailment in weeks. The company blamed the driver, but the union argued that faulty safety equipment had contributed to the disaster. It launched a health and safety campaign, calling on the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) to fix broken machinery. Drivers refused to operate trains that did not have functioning safety features.
In response, the SRT accused the union of organising a strike – which, as state enterprise workers, they are forbidden from doing. It filed a lawsuit against the 13 union leaders, which led to years of drawn-out negotiations and expensive litigation. Sawit was dismissed in 2011, and, though reinstated in 2014, was not compensated for the lost income.
In 2018, after the lawsuit was ended, seven of the national union leaders were ordered to pay 24m baht in fines and interest. The sum was to be deducted from their wages.
It did not end there. In 2019, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) brought criminal charges against the group, accusing them of omission of duties and of causing a work stoppage with an intention to cause damage. Those charges led to their sentencing on 21 October 2020.
