Women in the 'brick counting for money' village struggle to make a living during the hot season

In Quynh Van commune (Quynh Luu - Nghe An), there is a village that specializes in brick carrying and brick production for hire. The majority of these workers are women. On extremely hot days, these people still have to work hard to earn a living because if they don't work, they will lose their jobs the next day.

Every morning, the village of coolies in Quynh Van commune (Quynh Luu) sit on both sides of National Highway 1A waiting to find work. Brother: Viet Hung

Arriving on National Highway 1A very early, Ms. Ho Thi Mai was lucky to be hired by a car owner to go to the assembly area to pick up bricks.

Ms. Mai said that in this village, the profession of porter has existed for decades. After harvesting and finishing the season, people gather on National Highway 1A to wait for cars to come and hire them. Here, the main profession of porter is loading bricks onto trucks, each truck is paid according to the quantity of bricks, rain or shine, as long as there is work, they work.

Hired by the car owner to carry bricks, the group of porters quickly got to work. Photo by Viet Hung

“Cars entering and leaving the area to buy bricks are mainly in Dien Chau, Nghia Dan, Hoang Mai districts, Vinh city... People gather on the roadside very early so that when the cars arrive, they can easily find someone to hire them to load them. We are paid for loading, for every 1,000 bricks loaded onto the car, they pay 40,000 VND; on average, each car carrying 3,000 - 5,000 bricks, they pay 120,000 - 200,000 VND/car, this amount will be divided equally among the group of porters.”

Working all day under the blazing sun, drenched in sweat, they still persevere to make a living. Photo by Viet Hung

Working hard to load bricks onto the truck, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan said, we are paid by the truck owner based on quantity, some days we can load 10 trucks but some days only 3-4 trucks. This job requires working in groups of 5-10 people, so after dividing the wages, each worker earns 10,000-15,000 VND/truck; each day loading 5-7 trucks is about 50,000-100,000 VND/day; however, there are days when we don't get any money, we call this the job of "counting bricks to get money".

Despite her old age, Ms. Ho Thi Tinh still sticks to her job as a porter, willing to make a living in the hot sun. Each day, Ms. Tinh earns about 100,000 VND. Photo: Viet Hung

Under the scorching sun, the women still stick to their jobs. At the unburnt brick production facilities, some are hired as coolies, others are hired to produce bricks. Working all day under the hot sun, earning an income of around 100,000 VND is extremely hard, but for the sake of making a living, they are used to the job and do not complain.

Under the scorching, scorching sun, women still stick to their jobs.

In Quynh Luu district, there are hundreds of unburnt brick production facilities, of which in Quynh Van commune, there are over 160 households participating in production, creating jobs for more than 500 workers each year.

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