2,500 workers go on strike in Vietnam
About 2,500 workers have walked off the job at a South Korean-owned garment factory in southern Vietnam, demanding better pay, government and company officials said Monday.
Workers want the company to increase their monthly salary from 870,000 dong ($55) to 1.1 million dong ($69), said Lee Seong Jin, vice general director of Shin SungVina company in Long An province.
The increase would match raises recently given to 30 workers who received promotions into higher-skilled jobs.
The company is already paying higher salaries than most other foreign employers in the province, said Nguyen Van Thua, an official with the provincial trade union. And it is paying 22 percent more than the minimum wage for workers at foreign-owned firms in Vietnam.
"The workers are asking for too much," Thua said.
Shin SungVina opened its plant in Long An four years ago and had been planning to expand production, said Lee.
"With the current labor unrest, we will probably abandon that plan," Lee said.
Long An is some 30 miles southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.
A wave of strikes last year hit companies across southern Vietnam, with tens of thousands of workers at foreign-owned factories stopping work.
In response, the government increased the minimum wage at foreign firms by at least 25 percent.
The Associated Press - May 14, 2007.
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