Care about protecting workers' rights

(Baonghean) - A more suitable salary regime that protects the rights of workers, along with requirements for workers' skills and training; businesses with preferential policies; the state investing, paying attention and providing timely guidance... are solutions that must be implemented synchronously.

Sharing responsibility

In 2013, businesses continued to face many difficulties due to the negative impact of the economic recession, production and business fell into a difficult and stagnant state, greatly affecting all business activities. Nearly 1,000 businesses went bankrupt and closed down, many businesses are trying to survive. Out of 12,000 businesses in the area, less than 7,000 are currently operating. Therefore, workers have been sharing the burden of difficulties with businesses. They accept low wages, salaries not paid on time or businesses owing wages. And conversely, many businesses share and care about the lives of workers.

Birthday gifts for workers at Haivina Kim Lien Company Limited.

Or at Nghe Tinh Port Company Limited, for many years, the Labor Federation at all levels has always been evaluated for taking care of the health and spiritual values ​​of workers. In addition to the average salary of 6 million VND/month, the company also provides full labor protection and anti-toxicity, and personal equipment... Mr. Vo Van Sau, a worker at the company, said: Every year, the company provides two sets of labor protection clothing, plastic hats, and cloth shoes. The company also has a vacation policy once a year and invests in equipment and machinery to reduce labor for workers, and a guaranteed 13th month salary. Song Con Sugar Company (Tan Ky) currently has over 300 employees. Workers receive full material and spiritual care from the leaders on their birthdays, and on holidays and Tet. Workers are also able to fully utilize their abilities in innovative movements and technical improvements that benefit the factory (two engineers of the factory have won the first prize in Science and Technology of the province). Fortunately, the Board of Directors has paid attention to and invested in the innovative solutions of workers to apply them in practice.

The improved working environment, the leaders care about and motivate their subordinates, have a clear reward and punishment system, and encourage employees to develop initiatives... have created high efficiency in production and business and sharing between the two sides when difficulties arise. This is in contrast to businesses with poor treatment of employees.

Interest careworkers

A suitable wage regime that protects the rights of workers, at the same time requires the skills of workers, training, recruitment screening, and treatment, which must be included and reflected in the law. Why are workers paid low wages? Many people think that the minimum wage set by the Government is too low. The current minimum wage is based on the following factors: the minimum needs of workers, economic and social conditions, and market wages; however, this wage does not take into account market prices. To ensure the survival of a worker in a factory or enterprise, 3 meals a day are needed (20,000 VND/meal is the lowest level x 3 meals/day = 60,000 VND for meals/day), and a month's food costs 1,800,000 VND. Besides, there are many other expenses for workers such as housing, electricity, water... Thus, the current minimum wage of 1,900,000 VND/person is too low, only ensuring the food needs of the workers themselves, not enough to raise children and save.

Nghe An is a populous province with over 3 million people, including nearly 1.8 million workers. On average, every year the number of workers of working age added to the province's labor force is approximately 30,000 people. In terms of structure, the labor force is mostly young and energetic, the age group from 15 to 24 accounts for 22.45%, from 25 to 34 accounts for 14.16%; from 35 to 44 accounts for 13% and from 45 to 54 accounts for 8.71%. This is an advantage for Nghe An to develop its socio-economy. However, in order to basically become an industrial province by 2020, with an income reaching an average level compared to the whole country, there must be good policies for human resources associated with training. It is necessary to strengthen vocational training with high technology and reduce unskilled labor. Workers with formal, professional training will certainly find jobs with a better environment and regime than unskilled labor.

It is necessary to encourage developing professions such as food processing, agricultural products, aquatic products, microbiology, electronics, clean technology industries that are suitable to the potential and local conditions, so that after vocational training, if they cannot find a job in factories or companies, they can also start their own career in other big cities or in their hometowns such as opening factories, opening kiosks, opening agricultural and aquatic product processing facilities, etc. In vocational training, especially at universities, avoid training according to "trends", but need to train according to the needs of use. When training workers, vocational training needs to be combined with foreign language training so that when working with Korean, Japanese, and Chinese bosses, the two sides can be closer, understand each other better, and respect each other more. Currently, we see at some conferences that Korean investors who come to Nghe An to work speak Vietnamese quite fluently, while very few Nghe An people can speak Korean.

In addition, it is necessary to strengthen activities to guide and protect workers, raise awareness of labor discipline for workers, establish trade union organizations and build collective agreements at enterprises. Regarding this issue, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan - Deputy Head of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Quy Hop said: "The current solution is that enterprises need to pay more attention to applying new scientific and technical achievements, investing in advanced and modern machinery and equipment, contributing to improving product quality to compete in the market, increasing income for workers and improving working conditions for workers. Minimize the situation of workers having to do manual, heavy labor, work with old, outdated machinery and equipment, in an unsafe environment. Trade unions at all levels need to promote activities to care for the lives and protect the legitimate and legal interests of union members and workers."

The Southeast Economic Zone Trade Union is the unit responsible for protecting the rights of workers in industrial parks and economic zones. The Union has recently participated in inspection and supervision to protect the legitimate rights and interests of union members and workers. Ms. Tran Thi Nguyet - Vice President of the Southeast Economic Zone Trade Union commented: "To ensure better working conditions and raise awareness of the law for workers and employers in industrial parks, efforts from many levels and many sectors are needed.

Pay attention to investing in building houses, concentrated cultural houses, kindergartens for workers in industrial parks or create favorable policies for enterprises to invest in building houses, concentrated cultural houses, kindergartens for workers. Direct the development of Party and mass organizations in non-state enterprises. Allocate more budget for propagating and disseminating laws to workers in enterprises. Build a coordination mechanism and responsibility of functional agencies in implementing labor laws. Training facilities focus on training industrial style and discipline for workers. Trade unions at all levels and the Provincial Labor Federation, Social Insurance... must demonstrate responsibility, be more in-depth, thereby having more practical activities with workers.

Another solution is to increase dialogue in the workplace between employers and employees. Employers must proactively meet and dialogue with employees at least once a month, possibly have a suggestion box or organize office meetings, monthly meetings, etc. This is a solution to help employers grasp the thoughts and aspirations of employees, promptly resolve their frustrations and prevent strikes.

On the State side, it is necessary to focus investment resources on socio-economic development, maintain the growth rate to create a solid foundation for the task of stabilizing employment and increasing income for workers; Continue to effectively implement the Target Program for Employment - Vocational Training, the project to improve the quality of human resources, effectively carry out vocational training to serve the planning of career conversion in rural areas. Have budget sources to invest in building boarding houses, housing for workers, and rent to workers in industrial parks and economic zones to meet services for workers such as markets, healthcare, etc.

In attracting investment, we also need to screen, we should not attract investment indiscriminately because according to our investigation, for most foreign-invested enterprises operating in Vietnam, except for Haivina Kim Kien Company which paid more than 15 billion VND in taxes, the remaining enterprises did not collect any tax, or the amount collected was insignificant. Many enterprises are having to refund billions of tax to them. Foreign-invested enterprises always "transfer prices", export goods and declare input tax greater than output, report losses and we cannot collect tax. This is also a common situation in Vietnam that cannot be investigated because the parent company is abroad.

Article and photos:PV Group