Vietnam

Vietnam - Compensation & Benefit Legislation

CAPITAL

Hanoi

CLIMATE

Tropical climate in the south with a monsoonal climate in the north with a hot, rainy season (mid-May to mid-September) and a warm, dry season (mid-October to mid-March).

LANGUAGES

Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; and mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian).

LEGAL SYSTEM

Vietnam’s legal system is based on communist legal theory and French civil law system.

CURRENCY

Vietnamese Dong (1 USD = VND as of June 1, 2002).

VIETNAM - COST-OF-LIVING

ERI's Relocation Assessor is a recommended source for cost-of-living data.

VIETNAM - EMBASSY/CONSULATES

U.S. Embassy at Hanoi

7 Lang Ha Road

Ba Dinh District

Hanoi, Vietnam

PSC 461, Box 400

FPO AP 96521-0002

Hanoi, Vietnam

Telephone: [84] (4) 772-1500

Fax: [84] (4) 772-1510

http://usembassy.state.gov/vietnam/

Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at Washington D.C.

1233 20th Street N.W., Suite 400

Washington D.C. 20036

Telephone: (202) 861-0737

Fax: (202) 861-0917

Email: info@vietnamembassy-usa.org

http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/

VIETNAM - HOLIDAYS

New Year’s Day (January 1)
Eve of Tet
Vietnamese New Year
Liberation Day (April 30)
Labor Day (May 1)
Independence Day (September 2)

VIETNAM - LEAVE

Annual Leave: The law prescribes annual leave with full pay for various types of work.

Maternity Leave: 4-6 months – 100% of pay (paid by social security).

VIETNAM - MINIMUM AGE

The Labor Law permits children to register at trade training centers, a form of vocational training, from the age of 13.

(Section 6.d. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Vietnam – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

VIETNAM - MINIMUM REMUNERATION

The Government can exempt temporarily certain joint ventures from paying the minimum wage during the first months of an enterprise's operations or if the enterprise is located in a very remote area, but the minimum wage in these cases can be no lower than 449,880 dong ($30). The official monthly minimum wage of 180,000 dong ($12) outside the foreign-invested joint venture sector is inadequate to provide a worker and family with a decent standard of living. However, state-owned enterprises consistently pay more than that minimum.

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Vietnam – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

VIETNAM - REMUNERATION

ERI's Geographic and Salary Assessors are recommended sources for international remuneration covering 189 countries.

VIETNAM - REPORT OF HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES (2001, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)

Section 6 Worker Rights

a. The Right of Association

Workers are not free to join or form unions of their choosing. Trade unions are controlled by the Party and have only nominal independence. All unions must be approved by and must affiliate with the Party-controlled Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL). The VGCL is the umbrella organization under which all local trade unions must operate. The VGCL claims that it represents 95 percent of public sector workers and 90 percent of workers in state-owned enterprises. However, the overall level of unionization of the workforce is 10 percent. Approximately 500,000 union members work in the private sector, including enterprises with foreign investment. The vast majority of the work force lives in rural areas, is engaged in small-scale farming, and is not unionized. In 1999 the Government stated that trade unions had not fulfilled their role of protecting workers in foreign-invested companies, many of which it claimed did not respect labor regulations. The VGCL asserted that authorities did not prosecute some violations of the Labor Law. Union leaders influence key decisions, such as the amendment of labor legislation, development of social safety nets, and the setting of health, safety, and minimum wage standards.

While the Labor Law states that all enterprise-level and professional trade unions are affiliated with the VGCL, in practice hundreds of unaffiliated "labor associations" have been organized at many individual enterprises and in occupations such as those of taxi, motorcycle and cyclo drivers, cooks, and market porters. Foreign governments and international organizations, such as the ILO and other U.N. system organizations, provide technical assistance and training to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA), provincial labor departments, and the VGCL.

The Labor Law provides for the right to strike if workers follow the stipulated process of conciliation and arbitration. The law requires that management and labor first attempt to resolve labor disputes through the enterprise's own labor conciliation council. However, many enterprises do not have labor conciliation councils. In the case of the absence of such a council or if a council fails to resolve a labor dispute, the dispute is referred to labor arbitration successively at the district and provincial level. Individual workers may take cases directly to the peoples' court system, but in most cases, only after conciliation has been attempted and failed. Unions have the right to appeal decisions of provincial labor arbitration councils to provincial people's courts, or to strike. Because this process is lengthy and the necessary dispute resolution bodies in many provinces and localities have never been established, nearly every strike is considered illegal. Since 1995 the Labor Ministry has organized hundreds of training courses on the Labor Law for its staff and for managers of enterprises. The ILO and the U.N. Development Program are cooperating on a large multiyear technical assistance program to strengthen Labor Law implementation.

There were 70 strikes during 2000, the latest statistics available. Of these 54 were against foreign-invested or domestic private enterprises, and 16 involved state-owned firms. The majority of strikes took place in HCMC, Dong Nai Province, and other southern provinces where the modern economic sector is concentrated. Most strikes are symbolic and last only 1 or 2 days. Most strikes are caused by disputes over wages and related problems, including late payment of overtime pay, failure to pay customary holiday bonuses, and inappropriate labor discipline. Although nearly every strike did not follow the authorized conciliation and arbitration process, and thus was of questionable legality, the Government tolerated them and took no action against the strikers. Although the VGCL or its affiliate unions did not sanction these strikes officially, the local and provincial levels of the VGCL unofficially supported many of them. The Labor Law prohibits retribution against strikers, and there were no reports of retribution. In some cases, the Government disciplined employers for illegal practices that led to strikes.

The Labor Law prohibits strikes in 54 occupational sectors and businesses that serve the public or are considered by the Government to be important to the national economy and defense. A subsequent decree defined these enterprises to be those involved in: electricity production; post and telecommunications; railway, maritime, and air transportation; banking; public works; and the oil and gas industry. The law also grants the Prime Minister the right to suspend a strike considered detrimental to the national economy or public safety.

Individual unions legally are not free to affiliate with, join, or participate in, international labor bodies, and they do not do so in practice. However, the VGCL has relations with 95 labor organizations in 70 countries, and the VGCL's president traveled internationally, including to industrialized countries, to discuss labor matters.

b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

Under the law, the provincial or metropolitan branch of the VGCL is charged with organizing a union within 6 months of establishment of any new enterprise with five or more employees, if workers have not already done so. Management is required by law to accept and cooperate with those unions. The Labor Law provides VGCL-affiliated unions the right to bargain collectively on behalf of workers. In recent years, collective bargaining has become more important. Many contracts have been negotiated that ended the practice of annual renewal, and multiyear contracts have become more common despite initial resistance from foreign companies. In recent years, labor leaders have increased the number of workplace issues in collective bargaining agreements. Issues previously not covered in contracts, such as Sunday work, have been spelled out so that companies cannot order workers to work a 7th day. Since the country began moving away from central planning, market forces have played an increasingly important role in determining wages. The Labor Law prohibits antiunion discrimination on the part of employers against employees who seek to organize.

The same labor laws as in the rest of the country govern the growing number of export processing zones and industrial zones. There is anecdotal evidence that the Government is more actively engaged in enforcement of the labor laws in the zones than outside them.

c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

The Labor Law prohibits all forms of forced and bonded labor, including such labor by children; however, there were reports that thousands of children work in exploitative situations (see Section 6.d.). Some women are coerced into prostitution, and trafficking in women for the purpose of forced prostitution is a problem (see Sections 5 and 6.f.). Children were trafficked both domestically and internationally and forced to work as prostitutes (see Sections 5 and 6.f.). A study of child labor in HCMC found cases in which the parents in poor families had entered into "verbal agreements" with employers, who put their children to work; the children's salaries were sent directly to the parents.

The Government denies the use of prison labor without compensation; however, prisoners routinely are required to work, producing food and other goods used in prisons for little or no pay. Officials state that juveniles in Education and Nourishment Centers, which function much as reform schools or juvenile detention centers do elsewhere, are assigned work for "educational purposes" that does not generate income.

In 1999 the Government issued an ordinance requiring all adult citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 for men and between 18 and 35 for women to perform 10 days of annual public labor. However, the ordinance permits citizens to excuse themselves from this obligation by finding a substitute or paying a fee. While some have alleged that such laborers were recruited to construct the Ho Chi Minh Highway, the Government issued a decree in October 2000 that gave the force of law to its existing policy that all labor on this project must be voluntary and paid.

d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment

The Labor Law prohibits most child labor but allows exceptions for certain types of work. It sets the minimum age for employment at 18 years of age, but enterprises may hire children between the ages of 15 and 18 if the firm obtains special permission from their parents and the MOLISA. However, a widely-publicized MOLISA survey found that about 40,000 children between the ages of 8 and 14 years worked part time or full time in violation of the Labor Law. That estimate may be low, since many more children worked in the informal sector, usually on family farms or family businesses not within the scope of the Labor Law.

By law, an employer must ensure that workers under 18 years of age do not undertake hazardous work or work that would harm their physical or mental development. Prohibited occupations are specified in the Labor Law. Children may work a maximum of 7 hours per day and 42 hours per week and must receive special health care. However, authorities do not have sufficient resources to ensure enforcement of child labor regulations. International donor assistance targets the problem of child labor.

The Labor Law permits children to register at trade training centers, a form of vocational training, from the age of 13.

There have been reports that enterprises, including companies with foreign investment, have discovered underage workers in their employ. According to reliable sources, this occurred when the child workers presented false identity documents, frequently borrowed from older family members. Once discovered, the children lost their jobs, but in many cases the companies paid for their schooling and promised to reemploy them once they were of age.

In rural areas, children work primarily on family farms and in other agricultural activities. In some cases they begin work as young as 6 years of age and are expected to work as adults by the time they are 15 years of age. In urban areas, children also may work in family-owned small businesses. Migration from rural to urban settings has exacerbated the child labor problem. Compulsory education laws are not enforced effectively in rural areas, where children are needed to work in agriculture. However, the culture's strong emphasis on education leads parents who can send children to school to do so, rather than allow them to work. Due to lack of classroom space, most schools operate two sessions, and children attend either morning or afternoon sessions; a result of attending school only half days is that children are able both to attend classes and to work. The ILO stated that some street children both in HCMC and Hanoi participate in night education courses.

Government officials have the power to fine and, in cases of Criminal Code violations, prosecute employers who violate child Labor Laws. While the Government commits insufficient resources to enforce laws providing for children's labor safety, especially for children working in mines and as domestic servants, it has detected cases of child exploitation, removed the children from the exploitative situations, and disciplined the employers. In a 1999 case in which children were working in a private sector gold mine, the Government prosecuted and convicted those responsible.

In June the Government circulated a draft National Plan of Action implementing ILO Convention 182 on worst forms of child labor, which it ratified in November 2000.

The Labor Law prohibits forced and bonded labor by children; however, thousands of children work in exploitative situations, and children were trafficked both domestically and internationally for the purpose of sexual exploitation (see Section 6.f.).

e. Acceptable Conditions of Work

The Labor Law requires the Government to set a minimum wage, which is adjusted for inflation and other economic changes. The official monthly minimum wage for foreign-investment joint ventures is $45 (674,820 dong) in Hanoi and HCMC, and $40 (599,840 dong) elsewhere. The Government can exempt temporarily certain joint ventures from paying the minimum wage during the first months of an enterprise's operations or if the enterprise is located in a very remote area, but the minimum wage in these cases can be no lower than $30 (449,880 dong). The official monthly minimum wage of $12 (180,000 dong) outside the foreign-invested joint venture sector is inadequate to provide a worker and family with a decent standard of living. However, state-owned enterprises consistently pay more than that minimum. The number of workers who receive government-subsidized housing is decreasing. However, many workers receive bonuses and supplement incomes by engaging in entrepreneurial activities, and households often include more than one wage earner. An ILO study found that minimum wage requirements are well applied in all sectors, with the exception of smaller private sector enterprises. However, there have been a number of media reports citing incidences of violations of minimum wage requirements by companies with foreign investment.

In 1999 the Government reduced the workweek for government employees and employees of companies in the state sector from 48 hours to 40 hours. The Government encourages the private business sector and foreign and international organizations that employ local workers to reduce the number of hours in the workweek, but has not made compliance mandatory.

The Labor Law sets working hours at a maximum of 8 hours per day, with a mandatory 24-hour break each week. Additional hours require overtime pay at 11/2 times the regular wage and 2 times the regular wage on holidays. The law limits compulsory overtime to 4 hours per week and 200 hours per year. The law also prescribes annual leave with full pay for various types of work. The ILO has pointed out that the limit of 200 hours a year of overtime work is too low, and that workers and employers should have the right to agree to a greater amount of overtime work. It is uncertain how well the Government enforces these provisions.

According to the law, a female employee who is to be married, is pregnant, is on maternity leave, or is raising a child under 1 year of age cannot be dismissed unless the enterprise is closed. Female employees who are at least 7 months pregnant or are raising a child under 1 year of age cannot work overtime, at night, or in distant locations.

The Labor Law requires the Government to promulgate rules and regulations that ensure worker safety. The Ministry of Labor, in coordination with local people's committees and labor unions, is charged with enforcing the regulations. In practice enforcement is inadequate because of the Ministry's low funding and a shortage of trained enforcement personnel. The VGCL reported that there are 300 labor inspectors in the country but that at least 600 are needed. On-the-job-injuries due to poor health and safety conditions in the workplace are a problem. There is evidence, however, that workers, through labor unions, have been effective in improving working conditions.

Some foreign companies with operations in the country have established independent monitoring of problems at their factories. In some instances, they used NGO's and other nonprofit organizations to monitor workplace conditions and report abuses to the Ministry of Labor.

The Labor Code provides that workers may remove themselves from hazardous conditions without risking loss of employment. Companies report that MOLISA or provincial labor agencies perform labor and occupation safety and health inspections at enterprises when they learn of serious accidents or when there have been reports of hazardous conditions.

f. Trafficking in Persons

The Penal Code prohibits trafficking in women and children; however, trafficking in women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation and for labor, both domestically and internationally, is a serious problem. While no law specifically prohibits trafficking in men, existing laws could be used to prosecute traffickers who recruit or send men abroad to work for "illegitimate profits" or illegal purposes. Incidents of trafficking of adult males domestically or abroad are rare. While reliable statistics on the numbers of citizens trafficked are not available there is evidence that the numbers have grown in recent years.

Vietnam is both a country of origin and transit for trafficking. Vietnamese women are trafficked to Cambodia and China for sexual exploitation and arranged marriages. According to one report, between 1990 and 2000, approximately 20,000 young women and girls were sent to China to become brides, domestic workers, or prostitutes; however, it is not clear how many were victims of trafficking (observers believe many, if not most, of these young women were voluntary migrants and, at least initially, not victims of trafficking). Between 1995 and 2000, approximately 5,000 women and children were trafficked to and escaped from Cambodia. Some Vietnamese women also have been trafficked to Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There also have been reports that some Vietnamese women going to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and China as "mail-order brides" have become victims of trafficking. Women and children also are trafficked within Vietnam, usually from rural to urban areas. The country also is a transit point for trafficking. Typically, persons are trafficked from China or the Middle East to Australia, Europe, or Canada; however, this appears to have decreased during the year.

Some children are trafficked domestically, and others are trafficked to foreign destinations for the purpose of prostitution. An NGO advocate estimated that the average age of trafficked girls was between 15 and 17 years. Although statistics are not reliable, women and girls are trafficked from southern delta and highland provinces to Cambodia and from northern provinces into China generally for the purposes of prostitution, domestic work, or marriage. The Vietnam Women's Union and Youth Union are especially active in drawing attention to these problems and helping with education programs to warn vulnerable families of the dangers of deception by those who would lure young women and children into prostitution.

VIETNAM - SOCIAL SECURITY

Social Security Office of International Programs:

http://www.ssa.gov/SSA_Home.html

VIETNAM - STANDARD WORKWEEK

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Vietnam – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)