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19 October, 2011With escalating costs of living and shrinking purchasing power, Vietnamese unionists feel the need to strengthen their collective bargaining to improve and sustain living standards for workers.
VIETNAM: After the IMF two day Workshop on Organising and Union Building in Halong Bay, October 11-12, twenty-seven participants from the IMF-affiliated Vietnam National Union of Workers in Industry and Trade (VUIT) sought IMF's intervention to train their members on collective bargaining. Arguments put forth to improve the socio-economic conditions of workers who face a race to the bottom due to economic and employer controlled problems speak for themselves about the dire need to educate and equip Vietnamese unionists on collective bargaining, one of the fundamental workers rights.
The workshop also deliberated on the unions' needs;
The workshop also deliberated on the unions' needs;
- Membership development and recruitment
- Training of organizers to establish more plant unions
- Training of union officers on mainstream trade union work
- Training on labour laws, ILO Conventions and advocacy work
- Better collective bargaining and negotiation skills
- Mobilizing of grass root unions to strengthen the labour movement
- An action plan to strengthen the union
- Better communication, information dissemination and networking
- Stronger ties with IMF and its affiliates
Ngo Huy Toan, Vice President of VUIT stressed the need to strengthen the union in the face of the challenges of globalization and its impact on Vietnamese workers.
IMF Regional Representative P. Arunasalam referred to news reports indicating that low wages and cost-of-living hikes were major causes for the doubling of the number of labour disputes in Vietnam.