Pattaya bar dancers complain their pay withheld
published : 29 Oct 2019 at 13:05
writer: Gary Boyle
ORIGINAL SOURCE/WRITER: Chaiyot Pupattanapong
PATTAYA: Go-go dancers at a Walking Street bar complained to police on Tuesday that their foreign employer owed them 400,000-baht in unpaid wages since they started work in mid-October.
About 30 dancers filed their complaint at Pattaya police station about 3am. They said their employer at Hidden A Go Go bar had failed to pay their wages as had been promised.
Their representative, a 29-year-old woman who identified herself only as Gift, said they started working at the go-go bar on Oct 14, and their employer promised to pay them every 10 days.
The first payment due had been postponed to Monday, and when that deadline was missed they could no longer contact their employer. The overdue wages totalled about 400,000 baht, she said. Each dancer was contracted to receive a daily wage of 1,200 baht.
"Everyone has worked hard. We must dance on high heels for 7-8 hours a day. We all need to send money to parents and children, pay room rents and cover our personal expenses," Ms Gift said.
Police accepted their complaint and advised the women to also file it with labour officials.
Learn from listening
Vocabulary
- contract: to make an official written agreement with someone to do something - ทำสัญญา
- expenses: money spent in doing a particular job, or for a particular purpose - ค่าใช้จ่าย
- high heel: women's shoes with tall, thin heels - รองเท้าส้นเข็ม
- labour: people whose job involves hard physical work that is not skilled, especially work that is done outdoors - กรรมกร, ผู้ใช้แรงงาน
- postponed: delayed; decided that something will be done at a later time - เลื่อนออกไป
- representative: someone who has been chosen or elected by a person or group to vote, give opinions, or make decisions for them - ผู้แทน
- wage: an amount of money that you earn for working, usually according to how many hours or days you work each week or month - ค่าจ้าง
