Mr. Vu Ba Xu has been involved in the Youth Union of Muong Long commune, Ky Son border district for nearly 20 years, of which he was the Secretary of the Youth Union of the commune for 10 years. According to the comments of the commune leaders and the local youth union members, Mr. Xu is a capable and enthusiastic leader of the Youth Union, capable of gathering and mobilizing young people. Muong Long is a border commune with 13 villages, of which the farthest village is about 25km from the commune center, with difficult traffic routes, and most of the young people go to work far away, but as the leader of the local Youth Union, he has coordinated with mass organizations to innovate in propaganda work, mobilizing youth union members and people to eliminate backward living and production practices, introduce effective plant and animal varieties into production, and improve the lives and income of the people.
To create a source of cadres, the Muong Long commune Party Committee planned Mr. Vu Ba Xu - Secretary of the Commune Youth Union to hold the positions of Vice Chairman of the People's Council, People's Committee, and Chairman of the Commune Fatherland Front. With the desire to stay long-term, he was interested in the Muong Long commune Party Committee, creating conditions for him to study intermediate political theory, attend the university class of agricultural economics to meet the standards of commune civil servants. At the time of the Congress of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Muong Long commune for the 2022-2027 term, he was 42 years old. However, at this time, all specialized positions at the commune level were full, there were no more positions to arrange, so he was still "retained" as Secretary of the Commune Youth Union.
Vu Ba Xu shared: Being involved in the Youth Union has helped me to train, equip myself with knowledge and courage. Although my passion and enthusiasm are still the same, my dynamism and initiative are not as good as before. I really want to switch to a job that is suitable for my age and professional level to continue to contribute to the locality and also to make room for young people to take on the work, while also motivating them to strive.
It is known that Ky Son district currently has 1 district-level Youth Union official (born in 1988) who is over age and 7 over age Youth Union officials (born in 1986-1981) who have not been assigned. Comrade Vi Hoe - Secretary of Ky Son District Party Committee said: This is a concern of local Party committees and authorities. Party committees and authorities highly appreciate the efforts and contributions of Youth Union officials at all levels. However, the difficulty is that Youth Union officials are regulated by age, while the age of officials and civil servants in communes in the district is over the age of the Youth Union, so they cannot be assigned to other positions. Meanwhile, there are no retired officials and no new recruits, leading to many difficulties in transferring jobs for this group. To solve this problem, the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee has assigned the Organizing Committee of the District Party Committee to review, research and advise on a reasonable arrangement plan to ensure the rights of officials.
Not only in Ky Son, the situation of over-age Youth Union officials not being assigned new positions is a common reality in many localities in the province. This situation has forced many Youth Union officials to accept "giving up their seats" to find other development directions. For example, in early 2023, Deputy Secretary of the Youth Union of Thach Ngan commune (Con Cuong) Vy Van Lam (born in 1989) decided to quit his job. This made many people regret because Lam is a quite energetic and enthusiastic Youth Union official with more than 8 years of working in the local Youth Union. According to him, the decision to quit his job was due to two main reasons. The first reason is age, Lam himself is 34 years old this year, while his Youth Union Secretary is 35 years old. If the maximum age for working according to the regulations of the Youth Union 289 (Decision on promulgating regulations of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union) for grassroots Youth Union cadres is 35, then until the commune Youth Union Secretary is assigned to rotate, Lam himself will hardly have the opportunity to follow because he is no longer old enough. Meanwhile, the current positions in the commune are almost fully planned in all positions.
In Cam Lam commune (Con Cuong), where the commune Youth Union Secretary - Vi Van Quy, who is 38 years old this year, has not been assigned a job, or the Don Phuc commune Youth Union Secretary - Lu Thi Thuy, who is 36 years old this year, has not been assigned a new job, so she herself finds it difficult to continue to stick with the job for a long time, while the allowance is low. Therefore, quitting the job is Vy Van Lam's reluctant choice. It is known that in just the past 2 years, 6 commune-level Youth Union Deputy Secretaries of Con Cuong have quit their jobs.
One difficulty that the base is currently facing is that some cadres in general, and Youth Union cadres in particular, although having positions to transfer, have to temporarily stop to implement the general policy of the province. For example, in the case of Mr. Nguyen Trung Huy (born in 1992) - former Deputy Secretary of the Youth Union of Nghi Truong commune, after the former Secretary of the Youth Union of Nghi Truong commune was transferred to another job, Nghi Truong commune carried out the procedure to appoint Mr. Huy to the position of Secretary of the Youth Union of the commune. However, during this process, on March 7, 2023, the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee issued Official Dispatch No. 1757-CV/TU "on the implementation of Conclusion No. 48-KL/TW of the Politburo". Accordingly, the immediate requirement is to suspend the recruitment, acceptance of civil servants and public employees, and the addition of Party committees and the appointment of leaders and managers at the district and commune levels in the entire province until the provincial master plan on the arrangement of administrative units at the district and commune levels for the period 2023-2025 is approved by competent authorities. Therefore, Nghi Truong commune must temporarily suspend the appointment of comrade Nguyen Trung Huy to the position of Secretary of the Commune Youth Union.
Secretary of Nghi Truong Commune Party Committee (Nghi Loc) Hoang Van Viet assessed: Comrade Huy is a Youth Union cadre with professional qualifications, enthusiasm and passion for the Youth Union movement. He is one of the cadres planned by the Party Committee to create resources for the locality. Currently, he is a member of the Party Executive Committee, a delegate of the Commune People's Council, holding many positions: Acting Secretary of the Commune Youth Union, Deputy Secretary, Deputy Military Commander of the Commune, Deputy Head of the Inspection Committee of the Commune Party Committee.
Although the Party Committee was concerned, when there was a merger policy (Nghi Thinh and Nghi Truong), the local people's wish was for the superiors to create conditions for comrade Huy to mature to create a source of successor cadres for the commune.
That is the wish, but not everyone can achieve what they want. The grassroots unions are currently not only facing the situation of "aging" union leaders due to the lack of "output" arrangements, but also struggling to find successors. The secretaries of the Youth Unions of communes, wards and towns have not been able to arrange new jobs, affecting the psychology of the striving process of the deputy secretaries of the Youth Unions of communes and towns. Currently, many localities are "vacant" with the position of deputy secretary of the Youth Union at the commune level. Meanwhile, the deputy secretary of the Youth Union of communes, wards and towns is the closest successor source to supplement the position of secretary of the Youth Union of ward and commune when transferring to another job.
Sharing about this difficulty, Nghi Loc District Youth Union Secretary Nguyen Duc Loc said that the work of creating and finding resources from the village, hamlet to commune level is very difficult. For village and hamlet Youth Union secretaries, there is a lot of work and little allowance, so there are cases where they only work for a short time and then resign. For commune and town Youth Union deputy secretaries, they are part-time but in addition to Youth Union work, they also have to hold concurrent positions and their allowance is low, so many cases have resigned and it is very difficult to find resources to supplement. Currently, in Nghi Loc district, 6/29 communes are lacking the position of deputy secretary of the Youth Union.
Similarly, in Do Luong district, since Official Dispatch 1757 was issued, 4 out of 33 deputy secretaries of the commune Youth Union have resigned; in 2 communes, the commune Youth Union secretaries have been transferred to new positions but the deputy secretaries have not been appointed to become secretaries, so the deputy secretaries of the commune Youth Union have to hold both "roles" but are only entitled to the allowances according to the position of deputy secretary of the commune Youth Union. “The budget for union activities is too low, averaging 6-8 million VND/year, while the union organization participates in many movements. Due to financial difficulties, the union organizations have organized many activities such as car washing, scrap collection, etc. to raise funds for activities. Also because of the hard work and low allowances, it has significantly affected the mindset and feelings of the grassroots union cadres, causing a number of grassroots union cadres to become discouraged and quit their jobs. In addition, arranging work after the union cadres reach the age limit according to regulations is difficult, leading to the deputy secretaries of the commune union realizing that it is very difficult to have opportunities to develop, so they quit their jobs. Therefore, finding a source of successor union cadres is difficult,” said Nguyen Tat Hung, Deputy Secretary of the Do Luong District Union.
Comrade Nguyen Manh Phong - Head of the Provincial Youth Union Organization Board said that Nghe An Provincial Youth Union currently has 35 district-level Youth Union organizations and 948 grassroots Youth Unions. The number of provincial-level Youth Union members is 29, the district-level full-time members is 68, and the grassroots level has 1,890 (including the Secretary and Deputy Secretary). According to the Youth Union 289 cadre regulations issued by the Central Party Secretariat, the age of Youth Union cadres holding the position of member of the Provincial Youth Union Standing Committee is no more than 37 years old; the age of Youth Union cadres holding positions at district and grassroots levels is no more than 35 (except for areas with special difficulties, borders, islands, etc., no more than 37 years old).
According to this regulation, as of July 2023, the situation of over-age Youth Union cadres in Nghe An province at the grassroots level has 4 district-level comrades and 87 grassroots-level comrades who are over-age but have not been transferred, of which 4 are over 40 years old.
The reason why over-age Youth Union cadres cannot be transferred to other jobs is due to many different reasons, in which the subjective reason is that some grassroots Youth Union cadres have problems related to professional qualifications; practical capacity; the planned age is too close together; there is a lack of successors who meet the criteria for replacement... Regarding the objective reason, there are still some Party committees that have not really paid attention to the arrangement, rotation, training, and fostering, especially the work of planning cadre resources, so there are not many positions to arrange work for Youth Union cadres, especially those who are over the prescribed age. Along with that, in the process of implementing policies to arrange commune-level administrative units in Nghe An province in the period of 2019 - 2021; arranging regular police to communes; streamlining payroll... has had a significant impact on the number of payrolls and job positions in communes, wards and towns. Meanwhile, the staffing and positions in the operating apparatus of the units are sufficient, so to arrange them, we have to wait for someone to retire or wait for a vacant position to "replace".
The above reality shows that, in the context of streamlining the payroll, rearranging administrative units, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the State apparatus as at present, the arrangement of work for Youth Union cadres when they reach retirement age will become increasingly difficult, requiring fundamental solutions from Party committees at all levels to Youth Union organizations and each Youth Union cadre at the grassroots level.
