State Enterprises Workers' Relations Confederation (Serc) secretary-general Sirichai Mai-ngarm said the confederation had asked almost 300,000 workers from 43 state enterprises to attend the rally with the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) from March 13 to 14. The rally will repeat the call for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra to resign and cancel state-enterprise privatisation plans, which workers allege is an attempt to sell off the country's assets to foreign investors.

The workers will not face recriminations for striking or dereliction of duty because they will attend the rally under the extraordinary-meeting clause in the State Enterprise Labour Relations Act 1992, Sirichai said.

Monthienthong Thanaseth, head of the Provincial Waterworks Authority's labour union, said that since union members could exercise their legal rights to join the rally, enterprise executives should not try to stop them because problems confronting each state enterprise and related social problems would be discussed at the meeting, in a bid to protect the enterprises' for Thailand's benefit. He said that if the executives interfered, workers could still use some of their 20-day vacation leave to attend the rally.

Serc executive Kittichai Saisa-ard said at least 1,000 workers from each state enterprise would attend the rally and Serc would discus how to organise them on March 12. "If the government uses violence on the day, Serc will use its last resort of refusing to collect water and electricity bills and stop work," Kittichai said.