Please, no rabble-rousing
HO CHI MINH CITY - The workload is murder, attests Le Nhat
Quang. As head of Vietnam's labour federation in Tan
Binh district of Ho Chi Minh City, Quang must
supervise trade unions at 307 private companies, both
foreign and local, and hustle to set up new unions at
hundreds more. Has he ever helped any of his union
members lobby for a raise? "The point is not to increase
their salary," Quang replies. "The point is to make the
workers understand why their salary is low."
Confrontation has never been a tool of Vietnam's trade
unions, which report directly to the Communist Party.
Unlike their feisty brethren in South Korea, Taiwan and
the Philippines, Vietnamese unions don't paint
themselves as worker-advocates pressuring employers
for better working conditions. They aim to act as a
bridge between boss and worker, to increase
productivity, organize social activities and resolve
disputes without resorting to strikes. Within the
factory-level unions, supervisors and managers routinely
call the shots.
The paradox is striking: a communist "nation of
workers" is burdened with relatively weak trade unions.
At the same time Vietnam's transition to a more
market-oriented economy increases pressure on unions
to change. But it remains doubtful whether the largely
complacent union bureaucracy can mould itself into a
force more responsive to workers' needs for legal
understanding and collective bargaining. However, if the
labour federation becomes irrelevant, the party risks
losing its grip on the burgeoning private sector, where
just 30% of the eligible two million workers are
unionized.
For a glimpse of the gulf between workers and
unionists, visit a rickety, laundry-laced boarding house
in Binh Duong province in the south. Among the
workers who sleep five to a room, meet 24-year-old
Nguyen, who toils for Tanimex, a state-owned firm with
Taiwanese consultants that supplies shoe soles to a
Taiwanese company, Jijil Suong. Nguyen complains
that he works a daily 12-hour shift but gets paid only
550,000 dong ($38) a month. Other workers wrote to
the union requesting raises, he says, but their letters
seemed to fall into a black hole.
"I pay 4,000 a month to the union, and I haven't gotten
anything back," Nguyen declares. Why doesn't he just
elect new union leaders? "I don't know anything about
elections. Workers are never allowed to attend those
meetings, just senior staff," he replies.
A Tanimex spokesman confirms that ordinary workers
don't routinely attend union meetings, but says the rest
of Nguyen's account is inaccurate. Still, Nguyen won't
quit because he fears he'd have to pay a labour
recruiter a high fee to find him a new job. He won't go
on strike because it's too risky. And he certainly doesn't
want to return to his home province up north, where his
parents are farmers.
Nguyen envies his friend Hien, a 20-year-old worker at
the German lingerie manufacturer Triumph, where there
is no union. Hien earns 900,000 dong monthly for a
daily eight-hour shift sewing brassieres, allowing her to
send 500,000 back to her family each month. She says
the job is easier than being a seamstress in her home
village. Does she see any need for a union? "If the trade
union protects workers' rights, I think we need a trade
union, but if it just protects its own rights, I don't think
we need a trade union," she says.
For the labour federation, counteracting such bad word
of mouth is complicated by a catch-22. Under
Vietnamese law, workers should take the initiative to
set up unions at companies with more than 10
employees. But unless the company allows outside
unionists to proselytize inside the factory, workers have
little incentive to organize. And there's little appeal in
paying dues to an organization that doesn't explicitly
represent their interests.
At the Binh Duong labour federation, for example,
Vice-Chairman Nguyen Tam Duong recounts that
Triumph twice rebuffed his efforts to meet workers.
Triumph refuses comment. Yet Duong never
considered meeting workers outside the factory to whip
up enthusiasm. "If the managing director doesn't agree,
we have no chance to hold discussions with workers,"
Duong says.
Other unionists point to a political climate that
discourages rabble-rousing. In a Ho Chi Minh City
district, a unionist says he never approaches workers
because "the other workers might think I'm doing
something to provoke them to fight against the boss.
My colleagues would not understand my determination
and goodwill. I'm afraid it would affect my career."
The party has no wish to see unions grow too strong. It
realizes that Vietnam's primary draw for foreign
investors is an inexpensive, pliant, and relatively efficient
workforce. And the state's primary objective is
generating employment for 1.4 million new job seekers
a year. It considers the "right to work" the most
important right advanced by the unions. No matter what
the frustrations, most workers are relieved to find some
road out of rural poverty, as their earnings help buy the
motorbikes, televisions, and other consumer goods that
they couldn't imagine owning a decade ago.
In recent years, diplomats and foreign business
associations have helped spread the word to employers
that unions are not aggressive, and have encouraged the
bosses to make voluntary union donations. Even the
South Koreans and Taiwanese, long reputed to be the
foreign employers most resistant to labour activism, are
accepting more factory-level unions. The challenge
remains to foster more honest communication between
unionists above and workers below.
Wanted : a new attitude
Wildcat strikes numbered 71 last year, up slightly from
1999 but still few for the region. They don't accomplish
much. At the Hue Phong shoe factory in Ho Chi Minh
City, where some 3,000 workers walked out last
September without consulting their union, life has barely
changed. Workers are no longer forced to live in fetid
company dormitories, 20 to a room, but the pay is the
same and the scolding by overseers just as fierce.
Workers say that their Taiwanese supervisors still make
the final decision on who can join the union.
Within the vast network of unions in Vietnam, there are
hints of progress. In Haiphong, for example, a unionist
encouraged unhappy workers at a robotic parts factory
to send complaint letters to the big boss in Japan, who
then replaced the local Japanese manager. In Binh
Duong, 229 out of 352 factory-level unions have
collective bargaining agreements. A labour federation
newspaper, Lao Dong, publicizes some workers'
complaints.
"By many measures--the coverage of labour laws, the
tolerance of wildcat strikes, the slowly increasing clout
of grassroots unions, the relative openness of debate
over labour issues--there is evidence that the Vietnam
labour rights' regime is more flexible and responsive
than its Chinese counterpart," says a March report by
the U.S. Congressional Research Service.
Some American labour activists are preparing to
oppose ratification of the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral trade
agreement on the grounds that Hanoi does not allow
independent unions. But the pact's supporters argue
that more U.S. investment could help improve working
conditions.
Meanwhile, the labour federation is flexing its muscles
at the national level to demand more state funds to pay
unionists to be placed in large private companies. A
paternalistic legacy colours its anxiety. "Without the
trade union, there will be no one to organize culture,
sports, and entertainment activities. They will just work
like machines," frets Hanoi unionist Tran Van Thuat.
But demands for state funds are highly controversial
when the government is pushing for administrative
reform and looking to cut 70,000 public-sector
workers in the next two years. Money can't buy a
change in mindset, critics caution. What Vietnam needs
is a creative, responsive, well-trained team of union
leaders--not a more bloated union bureaucracy.
By Margot Cohen - The Far Eastern Economic Review - April 19, 2001.
|