Modest New Year bonus for Nghe enterprises

(Baonghean) - On the "Tet bonus map" of businesses nationwide, Nghe An businesses are quite quiet with "modest" bonuses.

Nghe An businesses give Tet gifts to poor students in Ky Son. Photo by Hoang Vinh.

“Two billion twenty-eight million VND is the 2016 Lunar New Year bonus that an FDI enterprise in Ho Chi Minh City gave to its employees, and the Lunar New Year bonus is also “roughly” over 600 million VND/person. Obviously, this is a number that makes the rest of the workers in the country sigh, even feel sad.

The last pages of the lunar calendar have almost “gone”. There are only a few weeks left for the whole country to celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Monkey. Localities have also announced the 2016 Lunar New Year bonuses of local businesses. “Each tree has its own flower, each family has its own situation”, so the Tet bonus levels are also “lively”. There are hundreds of millions, tens of millions, then a few million, and so on down to tens of thousands. The Tet bonus levels differ by up to 100,000 times! Some units even “fortune-tell” and cannot find any money, so they can only reward Tet with “home-grown” items still in stock such as calendars, chili sauce, and it is said that there are even… shorts to console and encourage the workers a little bit so as not to abandon them.

On that colorful "Tet bonus map", our Nghe An enterprises quietly appear in a rather "modest" "area code". According to the survey results of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of the province through 134 units and enterprises in the area, most of "our" units and enterprises give their workers a Tet bonus equal to one month's basic salary.

A few businesses have year-end bonusessuch as: Nghe An Sugarcane Company Limited, the average bonus is 7.1 million VND/worker, in some cases it is up to 80 million VND/month and that extremely rare number of 80 million has naturally held the record of the champion of this Binh Than bonus season. Same as last year, no different from other localities, that champion title belongs to the FDI sector. The leading unit of the enterprise sector with shares and capital contributed by the State is Tan Khanh An One Member Co., Ltd. with the highest bonus of 50 million VND.

A number that can be said to be "magnificent" if compared on the "vertical axis" in the area but is quite far away if viewed from the "horizontal axis" on the national level. However, up to this point, not to mention the Tet bonus, through our research, there are still businesses that owe their employees' salaries. So there will be a group of workers who will have to celebrate Tet this year in sadness. When talking to a worker of a company, we sadly heard "My company does not have any money yet".

Salary and bonus are one of the topics that society is most interested in when discussing labor relations, and are most awaited by employees after a long year of work. Especially in recent years, the story of Tet bonuses has not only been a concern of businesses for employees but has also become a measure of financial capacity, production and business efficiency, behavioral culture, and even human resource management strategy of the business.

For many years, the Tet bonus in “our hometown” has been sluggishly at the bottom. Another year that businesses have had to struggle to overcome the recession. The “bosses” are still struggling to find a market and direction. In short, the law does not have any provisions that “force” businesses to give Tet bonuses to their employees, whether it is cooking oil, chili sauce or shorts! Tet bonuses have long depended on the “flexibility” of each boss. Only when they are very extravagant will they be able to “slip” this content into the labor contract or collective labor agreement.

Nghe An workers seem to be too familiar with the not-so-big Tet bonus in their hometown. After Tet, a part of the workers quietly go to the South or North to find opportunities to welcome "small joys" every spring. Without much complaint, workers sympathize and share with businesses, but we outsiders also need to do something to help businesses do business, produce better, have more jobs and from there have a happier, warmer Tet for workers.

Nguyen Khac An