The Changing Character of Strikes in Vietnam
2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14631370600881796
ISSN1465-3958
Autores Tópico(s)Labor Movements and Unions
ResumoAbstract Vietnam introduced mechanisms for the resolution of collective disputes under the 1994 Labour Code, which provided for the use of the strike weapon as a last resort. Since then, Vietnam has seen around 100 reported strikes a year, not one of which has been called in accordance with the legal procedure, with a sharp increase in strike activity at the beginning of 2006. The character of strikes is also changing and the government is anxious to address the problem. Vietnamese discussion has focused on legislative reforms, but this is to ignore the fundamental substantive issue underlying the prevalence of wildcat strikes, which is the failure to develop a system of industrial relations within which the Vietnamese trade unions can effectively represent their members. This issue is coming to a head as a tight labour market encourages workers to press their interests beyond the rights embodied in the law. Notes 1. This article is based on published and Internet English-language sources, a two-week fieldwork trip to Vietnam in November 2004 with Chang-Hee Lee, senior industrial relations specialist in the ILO Asia Pacific Regional Office, and a report on the first stage of fieldwork in March 2006 for a project on 'Post-socialist trade unions, low pay and decent work', funded by the British ESRC under its Non-Governmental Public Action Programme (award RES-155-25-0071). On the 2004 trip Simon Clarke and Chang-Hee Lee spent one week in Hanoi and one week in Ho Chi Minh City, interviewing trade union, employer and government representatives at national, city and district levels and spending half a day interviewing trade union and employer representatives in each of five enterprises in each city, covering the foreign-invested, domestic private and equitised-state sectors, all with trade union organisations. I am very grateful to Chang-Hee Lee and to Do Quynh Chi, who organised our fieldwork, interpreted and participated in our interviews and provided invaluable clarification of many points and who heads the research team on the ESRC-funded project. I am also very grateful to Jan Jung-Min Sunoo and Nguyen Binh of the ILO/Vietnam Industrial Relations Project, who provided us with their data on strikes and answered many questions, and to all our informants in Vietnam. 2. About 40% of the employed labour force are trade union members, with VGCL claiming densities of about 30% in domestic private enterprises (DPEs), 50% in foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) and 90% in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). 3. An experienced local journalist, Le Thuy, reported that she had counted at least 150 strikes in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces alone in 2004, double her estimate for the previous year (Tan, 2005). 4. In addition to the views of our respondents on the strike situation and detailed information on three important recent strikes obtained through our interviews, we have gathered fragmentary information on a total of 143 strikes, which include about a quarter of all recorded strikes since 2002, from Internet news sources available in English, other published reports and data on recent strikes in 24 Korean-owned companies collected by Jan Jung-Min Sunoo, to whom we are very grateful. It is likely that our sample is biased towards larger and foreign-owned companies, whose strikes are more likely to be reported. 5. In HCMC between 1995 and September 2003, out of 128 strikes in foreign-owned companies 61 were in Korean-owned and 50 were in Taiwanese-owned companies. 6. Hop, 2004, p. 5, notes the influence of the low level of management culture in Korean and Taiwanese business communities. Chan & Wang, 2004, argue that Taiwanese companies pursue less repressive management methods in Vietnam than they do in mainland China because of more effective worker resistance and less government tolerance of such practices in Vietnam. 7. Almost half the strikes for which we have information before 2001 involved managerial violence or abuse. Since then the few reports of violence have all involved violence against strikers. 8. Of course there is no guarantee that the employer will stick to the agreement, although one would imagine that they would be more likely to have to do so where there is a trade union organisation. Some workers have had to strike repeatedly with the same demands. Employees of Konam Apparex, a Korean-owned clothing company in Tan Thoi Hiep industrial park in HCMC, were reported to have struck for the tenth time in October 2003 (Lao Dong, 25 October 2003, p. 2). 9. 'Most foreign bosses mistreating local workers claimed to be unaware of Vietnamese law owing to the language barrier, but in fact they intentionally ignored the country's labour laws', Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, head of HCMC DOLISA overseas labour management division (Vietnam Economy, 8 September 2004), a conclusion also reached by Hop, 2004, p. 4. 10. January, when the Tet bonus is due, is the peak month for strikes. 11. Inspection of 34 domestic and foreign-invested private enterprises found, among numerous violations, that only seven out of 18 FIEs had signed contracts with their workers and only a minority of their employees had social insurance (Vietnam News, 1 June 2005). A survey conducted by MOLISA in 22 cities and provinces found that more than half the private businesses had violated overtime regulations, of which 77% were foreign-invested companies. Only 9% of those working overtime had signed an agreement to do so, as is required by the law (Thanh Niên, 5 February 2005). Another survey in October 2004 showed that state enterprises were little better at observing the labour law. More than 20% of employees did not have social or medical insurance, and non-payment of overtime and delayed payment of wages were rife (Vietnam News, 5 January 2005) 12. A study in 2002 interviewed a small number of workers in Taiwanese-owned factories in Vietnam and found that almost a third had at some time been paid below the minimum wage, all in factories which were not governed by codes of conduct, and all, with the exception of those working for Nike factories, had been forced to work illegal amounts of overtime and were subject to illegal fines. Those workers who had not joined the union explained that 'it is controlled by the management, and those Vietnamese union cadres are utilised by Taiwanese to dominate workers', all but one saying that they would join a 'free', union (Wang, Citation2002). The implication, though on the basis of limited evidence, is that without a code of conduct legal violations are rife, that Nike effectively enforces its code of conduct in its subcontractors, but other contractors and regulators do so less effectively. 13. The inter-sector task force report noted that 'when there is strike, workers mainly gather outside the gate of enterprises causing regional security disorder and traffic in-safety (sic)', (Hop, 2004, p. 3). The employers do not demand police action but that a special area should be provided for strikers to assemble (VCCI Hanoi officer). 14. Until it asked to participate in the resolution of the 2005–06 wave of strikes, the employers' representative, VCCI, was never involved, but it is now part of the strike task forces in HCMC, Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. 15. A few of our official informants suggested that strikes were sometimes provoked by individuals with personal grievances or personality defects who misled or intimidated their fellow workers to stop work. 16. This also applies to disputes within the enterprise: one of the more active trade union presidents reported that the only complaint that he had received in the previous year had been from a woman who had been dismissed when her one-year contract terminated. He did not take up the complaint because legally the employer had the right to dismiss the woman. The same conception underlies the notion of the party which is at fault in a dispute. According to Decree No. 58-CP of 31 May 1997, wages should be paid in full for the duration of a strike if the strike is declared by a court to be legal and the employer is judged to be at fault. Only if the strike is illegal and the employer is not at fault should no wages be paid. 17. A job bazaar organised by the Dong Nai Youth League and local employers seeking 3,000 new staff recruited fewer than 150 workers (Than Niên, ILO Office in Vietnam Press Review, April 2004). In HCMC in 2004 the core sectors recruited only one-third of the number of new workers they needed (Vietnam News, 7 December 2004). The garment and footwear industries were reported to be missing contract deliveries and losing orders because of increasingly acute labour shortages in 2005, forcing employers to increase wages to recruit (Vietnam News, 18 October 2005). A national survey conducted by MOLISA confirmed an acute shortage, particularly of manual labour (Vietnam News, 21 April 2006). The Central Economic Committee recognised that the problem was not an absolute shortage of labour but low wages in the industrial sector (Thanh Niên, 5 November 2004). Wages increased by 8–10% over 2004–05, more rapidly in domestic than in foreign-owned companies (Vietnam Economy, 4 July 2005), but many FIE workers had had no increases for years. 18. The cost of rented accommodation is a serious problem for migrant workers. Very few employers provide dormitories (c.f. Chan & Wang, 2004) and the local administrations are only just beginning to address the accommodation problem. 19. Employers told us that they exchanged information about the wages they paid and discussed any proposed increases with their neighbours. No doubt the various foreign employers' associations play a role in suppressing active competition in the labour market. One employer, discussing this exchange of information about wages, stressed that 'this is not a conspiracy to hold down wages, just co-ordination'. In the recent strike wave at the end of 2005 there was no evidence of co-ordination among employers to resist raising wages; instead they fell like dominoes, one after the other. 20. The Labour Department of the Zone Management Board told us that the Sumitomo strike was provoked by that at Canon, but the director of Sumitomo was clear that it was his workers who struck first. This account of the Canon strike is based primarily on English translations of newspaper reports posted on the Asian Labour News website (Pioneer, 16 December 2003; Hanoi Moi, 15, 19 and 24 December 2003; Lao Dong, 18 and 20 December 2003: www.asianlabour.org). 21. The question of the 'legitimacy', of the demand for a wage increase raised the issue of the adequacy of the minimum wage, which Phuong recognised was 'low'. The legal minimum wage for foreign-invested enterprises in Hanoi was $45 a month, but according to the relevant decree this was converted to Vietnamese dong at an outdated exchange rate so that it amounted to only 565,000 dong a month. Under the Labour Code, the minimum wage should be adjusted to allow for inflation so that its real value is not eroded, but this has never been done since the minimum wage was introduced in 1999. The wages paid by Canon conformed to the legal requirements, but were below a minimum calculated at the current exchange rate. Hanoi DOLISA told us that after the strike they proposed a change in the exchange rate calculation to MOLISA, but received no reply. 22. According to one of our informants, some of the workers had said in a meeting with DOLISA: 'It is a big company, maybe the government will listen if we strike'. Cu Chi enjoys a special status because of its role in the American War, and there is a sense that the government cannot touch the heroic people of Cu Chi. 23. Before Decree No. 01/2003/ND-CP a worker who left a company before retirement age received a one-off repayment of social insurance contributions and resumed payments when s/he found another job. Article 1.5 of the decree, which amends Art. 28 of the Labour Code, stated that: In the following cases, the contributor is eligible for one-off payment of social insurance and for every year of contribution s/he will receive 1 month's average salary: a) A worker who has stopped working at retirement age but has not got enough time of social insurance contribution to be eligible for monthly payment of pension. b) Legal emigrants. A worker who has stopped working before retirement age with insufficient social insurance contribution will be given his social insurance book and his contribution will be reserved until he can continue contributing to the SI fund'. After the Samyang strike, Circular 07/2003 (12 March 2003) was issued, in which Art. 7 extends the above stipulation: 'For those who have stopped working, after 6 months if they cannot find jobs that allow them to continue contributing to the SI fund, they can apply to receive a one-off payment' (I am grateful to Do Quynh Chi for providing me with this translation of the decree and circular). 24. A senior VGCL officer in HCMC alleged that many of the Sam Yang strikers had been intimidated into striking: on the second day 1800 workers had been persuaded to return to work but somebody had telephoned the workshops and threatened to raid the dormitories and rape all the women if they stayed at work, but nobody at Sam Yang mentioned this to us. The VGCL informant also told us that the strike only ended when the local People's Committee threatened that the strikers would be sacked for absenteeism and that after the strike 300 ringleaders left the factory voluntarily. 25. 'Strikes happen because trade unions are so weak at the workplace and they do not represent workers at the workplace. There has been no strike initiated by a trade union because workers do not trust trade unions at the workplace' (Senior VCCI official). Task force report: 'The role of the trade union steering committee is not strong and passive. Trade union leaders have not shown their capacity and responsibility in protecting rights and interests of workers as well as guiding and organising strikes as regulated in labour law' (Hop, 2004, p. 4). 26. Under the government's proposed revision of the Labour Code strikers lose the right to be paid while they are on strike even if the strike is legal, and become liable for damages if the strike is illegal (Chapter 14, article 174d). 27. Local officials pleaded urgently with the government to announce an increase in the minimum wage. Some reports suggested that employers were being encouraged by local officials to hold out until the government made a decision. 28. There were some ominous reports on the January 2006 strikes. The Taiwanese United Daily News reported that police had detained some 100 striking workers in two Taiwanese companies in Binh Duong Province. The Deputy Chairman of the HCMC People's Committee, Nguyen Thien Nhan, warned that 'the city administration is determined to punish those inciting workers to illegally strike and indulging in violence, affecting the investment environment' (Vietnam News, 6 January 2006). The British Economist also stuck its oar in, asking 'Why didn't Vietnam crush the illegal strikes?' (28 January 2006). Additional informationNotes on contributorsSimon Clarke Professor Simon Clarke, Centre for Comparative Labour Studies, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. Simon.Clarke@warwick.ac.uk
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