Social insurance debt: Have relevant agencies fulfilled their responsibilities?

(Baonghean) - Recently, the situation of enterprises owing and evading social insurance and health insurance payments for employees has been widespread, greatly affecting the rights of employees. This situation has occurred because relevant agencies have not been proactive and resolute with "slow" enterprises...

Consequences of social insurance debt

Although he quit his job at Manh Sang Construction and Trading Company Limited (located in Tan Son Commune, Do Luong District) in January 2013, Thai Doan Dong has not yet received his social insurance book, even though he had worked for 11 years and 8 months at the time of his resignation. This is a disadvantage because when he gets a new job, Mr. Dong cannot continue to participate in social insurance when his social insurance book has not been finalized. If he wants to participate again, Mr. Dong must give up the previous participation period, otherwise he will have to wait for the company to pay his social insurance debt. In addition to Mr. Dong, 13 other workers at Manh Sang Construction and Trading Company Limited are also struggling because of the same situation.

In the same situation, 55 workers of Nghe An Construction Joint Stock Company No. 3 (headquartered in Dien Phuc commune, Dien Chau district) have not had their benefits resolved due to the company's debt to social insurance. Ms. Thai Thi Thu Hang - a former worker of the company who quit her job in January 2014 said: "Up to the time I quit my job, I had participated in social insurance for 6 years, but until now I have not been able to close my book because the company has not paid social insurance. During my working time, I participated in health insurance, but the company did not issue a health insurance card, so every time I went to the doctor, I had to pay out of pocket. In the company, there are some cases where people have given birth for many years but still have not had their maternity benefits resolved."

In recent years, in the province, the situation of enterprises not seriously implementing social insurance and health insurance policies for employees is quite common. This means that employees are working in enterprises but are not paid the regime when they are sick, ill, pregnant, giving birth or have work accidents.

482 Traffic Construction Joint Stock Company - one of the enterprises with large social insurance debt.

According to the report of Nghe An Social Insurance, as of October 31, 2016, the total social insurance debt of the province was 135,768 billion VND, accounting for 6.2% of the receivables. Of this, the debt from 6 months or more was 88,230 billion VND, accounting for 64.99% of the total debt. The debt mainly falls on units in the enterprise sector with the amount of 99,286 billion VND. Of which, there are 22 enterprises with a debt of 1 billion VND or more, typically Joint Stock Company 482 (debt of 7.5 billion VND)...

There are companies that have accepted multiple administrative fines and late payment interest but still have not paid social insurance for their employees, typically 747 Construction and Trade Joint Stock Company (owing 1.4 billion VND), Construction Joint Stock Company No. 9.1 (owing more than 900 million VND)...

In addition to many businesses being slow to pay social insurance, as of October 31, 2016, in Nghe An province, 256 businesses had stopped operating and "disappeared", leaving a total unpaid social insurance amount of 11,515 billion VND, with 114 employees having quit their jobs but not yet had their social insurance payment period confirmed because the unit still owed social insurance money.

Strong solution needed

As the management agency, primarily responsible for collecting and resolving social insurance and health insurance regimes, in recent times, Nghe An Social Insurance has implemented solutions to recover social insurance arrears. However, according to the agency's assessment, the propaganda work is still limited, not regular and not enough information for employers and employees to deeply understand social insurance and health insurance policies, thereby changing awareness of the responsibility to pay social insurance and health insurance and the behavior of participating in social insurance and health insurance; some officials and civil servants when approaching businesses still lack the skills to urge the collection of social insurance arrears; the work of advising the province to issue solutions is still limited...

Meanwhile, according to the Law on Social Insurance, "The Social Insurance Agency performs the function of specialized inspection of social insurance, unemployment insurance and health insurance contributions according to the provisions of the law and other relevant legal provisions". With this function, the Social Insurance Agency is responsible for implementing specialized inspection work, combining solutions to reduce the situation of unpaid or late payment of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance.

Faced with the reality that social security benefits of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance of employees are increasingly seriously violated, specifically the debt of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance is increasing, in order to strengthen supervision of law enforcement and protect the legitimate rights and interests of employees, at Point d, Clause 1, Article 14, Law on Social Insurance 2014 stipulates: "Sue in court against violations of the law on social insurance that affect the legitimate rights and interests of employees and labor collectives as prescribed in Clause 8, Article 10 of the Law on Trade Unions". This is considered one of the particularly effective tools to protect the rights of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance for employees, if this work is done well.

In early December 2016, the Provincial Federation of Labor filed a lawsuit against Venture Nghe An Garment Export Joint Stock Company (headquartered in Thanh Tien Commune, Thanh Chuong District, operating since September 2015) to the People's Court of Thanh Chuong District, requesting payment of more than VND 2.3 billion in outstanding social insurance debt. After many unsuccessful attempts to collect the debt, the Nghe An Federation of Labor decided to file a lawsuit. This is the first enterprise in Nghe An to be sued after the work of filing lawsuits for violations of social insurance laws was transferred to the trade union organization according to the amended Social Insurance Law 2014.

Workers at Haivina Kim Lien Garment Company - one of the few enterprises in the province that implements the social insurance regime well for employees.

Mr. Nguyen Chi Cong - Head of Policy - Law Department, Nghe An Provincial Labor Federation said: "After signing the coordination and exchange regulations, providing documents in filing lawsuits in court for violations of the law on social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance with Nghe An Social Insurance, Nghe An Provincial Labor Federation also considered filing lawsuits against a number of enterprises such as: My Hao Private Enterprise and Nguyen Trung Joint Stock Company...

After the announcement of the lawsuit, My Hao Private Company also paid 55 million VND in insurance debt. Therefore, Nghe An Provincial Labor Federation has temporarily suspended the lawsuit against this enterprise. As for Nguyen Trung Joint Stock Company, it has not yet found a representative to contact at the address that this enterprise registered with the authorities (No. 55, Tong Duy Tan Street, Ha Huy Tap Ward, Vinh City - PV)".

At the online conference on implementing solutions for initiating lawsuits, inspecting, and collecting social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance debts recently jointly organized by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor and Vietnam Social Security, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security Tran Dinh Lieu said: "The key to effectively implementing social insurance debt collection is the initiative of local social security agencies and the proactive supervision of agencies under Vietnam Social Security and organizations coordinating with Social Security such as Trade Unions, Youth Unions, and Women's Unions to both propagate, educate, and persuade, but at the same time use the prescribed legal measures, such as inspection, lawsuits...".

Thus, in order to avoid the phenomenon of "overdue social insurance" debt, it is necessary to apply strong measures to enterprises, but the most important thing is that social insurance must properly perform its role and responsibility, in presiding over and coordinating with relevant agencies to handle overdue social insurance debt.

PV Group