The Thailand government has launched a probe after a media worker, who was employed with a news organisation, died at his desk on Monday from a heart attack after allegedly working overtime, The Independent reported.
Sarawut Srisawat, 44, worked as a senior manager in charge of programme schedules with the Thai News Network (TNN) building in Bangkok. There are reports he worked frequent overtime, only returning home around 3am. He was also suffering from underlying conditions, including diabetes and high blood.
Labour minister Suchart Chomklin ordered an investigation this week into the case after the case prompted outrage among staff and other media workers. The ministry said that authorities were “urgently” looking into the facts of the case.
Reportedly, a now-deleted Facebook post about Srisawat’s death went viral on social media and described him as an employee who regularly worked overtime, often seven days a week. It alleged he was forced to do so as there was no one in the company to stand in for him and that he was recently called back from his sick leave to finish off work.
The Thai Journalists Association alleged in a statement that the man had died after consecutive days of hard work, Bloomberg reported. “Currently, the media industry still has a work culture that is vulnerable to many cases of violations in labour laws,” Teeranai Charuvastra, the association’s vice president, said in the statement. “This is a problem that people working in the media industry have always known about. But it still happens all the time.”
