Owner of a Mu Kratha shop serving soup to employees who arrived late for work

Owner of a Mu Kratha shop serving soup to employees who arrived late for work 

The mother, Anong Sidaprom, 37, lodged a complaint against the proprietor of the Thai-style shabu hotpot establishment Fah Sang South Pattaya on Saturday night at the Pattaya Police Station. Anong claimed that her daughter-in-law, Nattawat Komolwanit, 22, and her son, Patcharapol Sidaprom, 18, had each received sixteen canings from the shop owner, Jeh Fah.

Anong said her son was caned 12 times but he volunteered to be caned six more times to reduce his wife’s punishment by half.

Anong said she learned of the punishments after she saw the clip of the caning on Facebook on Friday so she travelled to Udon Thani province to find out what had happened. The clip has been posted and widely shared earlier in the week.

Anong said she initially planned to meet the shop owner at the police station to settle the compensation without filing a complaint but the shop owner did not turn up so she decided to have her son and daughter-in-law press charges against the shop owner.

Many Facebook users who saw the clip attacked the shop owner for what they called a “barbaric way of punishment”.

On Friday, a reporter interviewed the shop manager, Yuwadee Boonsarn, 33, who said the caning punishment was an agreement between the shop owner and the staff.

The manager explained that the shop owner used to earlier deduct five baht for every minute they were late, but it turned out that several staff were owed nothing after the deductions.

The manager said the shop owner then proposed a two-week suspension from work as punishment but the staff proposed caning instead as they would like to come to work to get tips.

She explained that being late by 10 minutes was punished with one caning and the staff assured the shop owner they would not get mad.

On Friday, Patcharapol and Nattawat said they had agreed to the caning and that the shop owner was a kind-hearted person.

However, they changed their comment at the police station after filing the complaint, saying they felt bad about being caned and they would not return to work at the shop.

Also on Saturday, the shop owner insisted that her staff asked her to use the method of punishment instead of suspension from work. She said she would pay compensation to the couple and would henceforth deduct money for those reporting late to work.