Unstable profession of porter

(Baonghean) -Every day on the streets of Vinh city, at almost every intersection, you will see groups of freelance workers waiting for customers to hire them. "Cuu van" is the phrase that people often use to call these freelance workers.

They are farmers in suburban districts such as Hung Nguyen, Nam Dan, Nghi Loc, Cua Lo... After finishing their farming work, a group of farmers actively go to the city to work for hire to earn money to cover their daily lives. They are mostly female workers, aged 30-50, who are the heads of families who shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the lives of the whole family. Prices are increasingly escalating, inflation is high, farmers who have already suffered many difficulties are now even more miserable, that is the reason why more and more freelance workers are coming to the city to find work. There are many people, little work, and the opportunity to find work is increasingly difficult. They do anything anyone hires them to do, from cleaning houses, to gardening, construction work, carrying sand, gravel, soil, bricks and stones... they do it all, as long as they can earn 50-100 thousand VND a day to spend.

One hot summer afternoon, at the Kenh Bac Bridge intersection, on the sidewalk of Nguyen Sy Sach Street, I counted more than 40 workers taking a nap. Looking at their faces, I saw that everyone was tired and sad. Through research, I learned that many of them were raising young children and had to leave their children to work all day. Many pregnant women still tried to do heavy work. All of them were working for a harsh living. Because they were freelance workers, they did whatever they were hired to do, so they had no insurance or labor contracts. If an accident happened during the work process, they themselves would have to bear the loss. Although it was so difficult, there were still employers who owed millions of dong in wages.

Ms. Ngoc in Nghi Van commune, Nghi Loc district shared: "I had no choice but to go to the city to work as a porter to earn money to raise my children. Many days I sat waiting all day, tired, with nothing to do, and was chased, even had my bicycles confiscated and fined 50,000 - 100,000 VND each for encroaching on the sidewalk, spoiling the urban beauty. On lucky days when there was a lot of work, I earned two hundred thousand VND, which made me very happy. Our luggage was a pair of shoulder poles, hoes, shovels, bamboo baskets and our own labor. Although the work was hard, everyone had to be frugal and not dare to spend money on themselves. We worked all day, and at noon we found a place with cool shade and spread out plastic sheets to sit and eat rice balls we brought from early morning. Each person had a simple bundle of rice balls to take with them, but by noon it was cold and hard, we couldn't swallow it, so we still had to try to eat it, then lay down on the sidewalk to sleep.

Every day, Ms. Thuong (Nghi Loc) has to leave her 6-month-old daughter with her grandmother to go to Vinh to work as a porter. In the morning, she wakes up at 4am, cooks breakfast and saves some for lunch. She wakes her child up, breastfeeds her, then carries her to her grandmother. She cycles quickly into the city, afraid that if she is slow, she will lose her chance to work. Every day is the same, leaving in the morning and returning late at night.

The labor force of the porters is meeting the labor needs of the city every day. Any employer who needs work can come to them to negotiate the price, and the work will be quickly resolved. They do not mind the hard work, do not require any conditions - they are simple peasant laborers who only know how to work with all their might. The only thing that the workers worry about most is that when they no longer have the health to work as porters, to earn extra money to cover this difficult life.

Quynh Lan