Thai women earning under £1 an hour

In early January the government announced that it had successfully secured £12,000 owed to a group of Thai women who have been working in Scotland for the electronic keyboards group Chicony.

The announcement followed a story last September in the Sunday Mail in Scotland which claimed that Chicony were paying Thai women just 96 pence an hour. Minimum wage enforcement officers visited the company and told the employers about their obligations under the National Minimum Wage Act and decided that an investigation was warranted. Subsequently, an enforcement notice was issued, against which the company appealed. However an agreement has since been agreed with the Thai arm of Chicony which has agreed to pay all the back money owed to the Thai workers.

The government said that there was no hiding place for an employer who acts unlawfully and fails to pay the minimum wage to their workers: "All workers in the UK are entitled to the minimum wage even if they are overseas workers working here for an overseas company."

Chicony is Taiwanese owned through an intermediate holding company in the British Virgin Islands. According to its German website the company is concerned with "the creation of well-being of all the human race".