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."