October 9, 2007
According to VNN, Vietnamese News Network, tens of thousands of workers in the industrial area of Binh Duong have gone on strike since October 5, 2007 to demand higher salaries.
The strikes started out in a few companies like the shoe company Viet Lap and a Korean company Bang Kook. Within a few days the labor unrests spreads to other companies nearby (50m from each other) like Duy Hung, another shoe company. Duy Hung’s 7,000 workers walked out on Saturday October 7, 2007. The workers go to work on time, however, instead of start working, they refuse to enter the building but stay in the front yard.
According to VNN, almost 99% of workers at these companies join the strike to raise their collective voice.
Vietnamese workers earn typically around $2 a day and have harsh working conditions. They are frequently subject to overtime without compensation. They are regularly subject to insult, physical and sometimes sexual abuse by factory managers.
The underlying reason for the worker unrest is government neglect and coercion with factory owners and lack of labor rights. Communist officials claim that The Vietnamese General Confederation of Labor protects and represents the workers but in reality it is only a arm of the Vietnamese Communist Party. In the absent of labor rights and the rights to form independent trade unions to really protect workers’ rights, the Vietnamese workers often feel helpless and thus often times accept the harsh conditions.
However, there are signs that Vietnamese workers are beginning to stand up for their rights. The number of worker’s strikes and peasant protests has been escalating lately in Vietnam. Last year in 2006 Vietnam experienced worker strikes at a large scale, starting from Saigon and quickly spread to other regions in Vietnam, including the northern regions.
