Strikes by 30,000 hit south Vietnam
HANOI - More than 30,000 workers went on strike over salary disputes at foreign-owned factories in southern Vietnam over the weekend, but most were back at work on Tuesday, a labour official said.
By Tuesday most of the wildcat strikes at 12 factories in Dong Nai province, next to Ho Chi Minh City, had been resolved, Huynh Tan Kiet, chairman of the local government-sponsored Labour Confederation union said.
"The workers went on strike because the companies don't raise their salaries as high as they had expected," Kiet said.
On Tuesday only 1,400 workers from two companies were still striking, he said. Those were Taiwanese-owned All Super Garment Co. and Chinese-run Peaktop Co, which makes woollen hats and cloth bags.
Most foreign companies grant yearly salary increases during the lunar new year, celebrated last month in Vietnam, but there is no set amount. Kiet said this year some factories raised pay as little as 25,000 dong (1.5 dollars) per year.
The average pay of a Peaktop employee is 845,000 dong (52 dollars) per month, barely above the minimum wage of 790,000 dong (49 dollars) per month for the province, according to the local newspaper Tien Phong. Peaktop officials could not be reached for comment.
Dong Nai province, which lies directly north of Vietnam's southern commercial centre Ho Chi Minh City, has an estimated 540 partly foreign-owned factories employing more than 280,000 Vietnamese.
The weekend strikes in Dong Nai are the second wide-scale labour actions in Vietnam in a little more than a year.
In January 2006, more than 40,000 workers at 50 factories in Ho Chi Minh City and adjacent Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces walked off their jobs, also demanding pay raises.
Those strikes ended when Vietnam ordered the minimum wage paid by foreign-owned factories increased from 680,000 dong (42 dollars) per month to between 710,000 and 870,000 dong (44-55 dollars), depending on the province.
Several foreign investors - particularly Taiwanese - complained about the government's move to suddenly raise the minimum wage without notice, warning that the manufacturing that had rushed in could leave if wages rise too high and government interference becomes cumbersome.
Still, Vietnam's wages remain an estimated 30 per cent lower than in parts of China, prompting thousands of new factories to set up in the last five years.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - March 13, 2007.
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