Labor code sparks debate in Vietnam

Labor code sparks debate in Vietnam

By Philippe Agret

HANOI (AFP): The adoption of Vietnam's first labor code has
provoked intense debates in the country's national assembly,
convened to address an absence of social legislation and low
economic development.

Many assembly members have called into question a draft text
of the code which would for the first time allow the right to
strike, and seeks to reconcile the interests of foreign investors
with those of local workers, the communist party daily Nhan Dan
said.

The labor code was made necessary by Vietnam's economic
opening, and will deal with a minimum age for child workers,
labor conditions for women, the role of unions and the allocation
of wages.

The code's adoption was delayed during the assembly's last
session in December, when members were unable to agree on key
issues.

The prospect of failed legislation is again worrying the
assembly, as is the reaction to it on the part of private
industry which has consistently tried to escape the influence of
the state, sources said.

The assembly is aiming to impose a minimum wage at the
provincial level -- and not a national minimum wage as previously
planned -- after taking into account wide regional disparities,
sources in Hanoi said.

A similar pragmatic approach will likely prevail in the field
of women's labor, which in theory is neither hard nor dangerous
but in fact ends up being as hard as men's work.

Many Vietnamese women work in rice paddies, factories, in road
work and on construction sites, but it is impossible to lay off
all of them immediately in the name of protecting their health,
said some assembly members who have called for employment equity
between the sexes.

Unemployment in Vietnam is already running at 20 percent,
western economists estimate.

The assembly is also divided on the role of labor unions,
especially in joint ventures with foreign partners, with many
complaining the proposed code is "too general," and ignores
concrete problems Vietnam is facing.

For decades Vietnamese unions have been effectively powerless
outgrowths of the ruling party here, unable to reflect actual
workers' concerns.

Social tension has been on the rise of late in the southern
part of the country, as mostly Taiwanese and South Korean
businessmen have been pitted against local workers unaccustomed
to fighting for their rights.

The authorities in Hanoi are afraid of even greater tension in
the event that they pass a law boosting workers' rights, only to
have the law ignored.

The government does not want to discourage potential foreign
investors with strikes that could tarnish the regime's prestige
with investors and threaten an annual growth rate of eight
percent.

One goal of the new labor code is therefore to define limits
to the right to strike as well as the recourse to mediation.

Some of the more hardnosed members from the business-oriented
south of the country want to ban strikes altogether in state
enterprises in the name of "the national interest."