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From Harmony to Conflict: Vietnamese unions on the threshold of reform
Abstract
The chapter provides an overview
of the existing trade union landscape in Vietnam, its historical
development and political and economic context and an assessment of
current trends in labour relations and the strategies being pursued by
the trade unions, with a focus on bargaining and industrial action. It
concludes with an appraisal of potential changes in industrial relations
in Vietnam in consequence of Free Trade Agreements that Vietnam is
negotiating and that contain labour clauses requiring the ratification of
the outstanding ILO Conventions No. 87, 98 and 105.
... Throughout its history, the Vietnamese Trade Union has accompanied the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) at the national and sub-national levels (Collin 2020; Schweisshelm and Do 2018). In the global economic crisis of the 1930s, the working environment in Vietnam under French rule was tough. ...
... During the subsequent war against the United States, the union became an essential wing of the VCP to gather workers for war-oriented production in order to build a socialist economy in the North and to assist the national revolution in the South. In contrast, labour associations emerged in the South along with an explosion of strikes (Schweisshelm and Do 2018). This included organizing thousands of strikes with the Trade Union of Southern Liberation Vietnam (Lien hiep Cong doan giai phong mien Nam Viet Nam) during the 1960-1970s (Kerkvliet 2010;Schweisshelm and Do 2018). ...
... In contrast, labour associations emerged in the South along with an explosion of strikes (Schweisshelm and Do 2018). This included organizing thousands of strikes with the Trade Union of Southern Liberation Vietnam (Lien hiep Cong doan giai phong mien Nam Viet Nam) during the 1960-1970s (Kerkvliet 2010;Schweisshelm and Do 2018). ...
This chapter explores the role, function and organizational structure
of the VGCL in contemporary Vietnam’s industrial context. It explains
why the VGCL functions inefficiently and how it depends on the VCP.
The chapter also explores the issue of trade union freedom in Vietnam,
the processes of their formation and development, and the existence
of illegal trade unions in the country. The study found that during
the operation of Vietnamese trade unions freedom of association
has in some periods been practised or has at least been intended for
implementation. In addition, some illegal independent trade unions
have been established and have existed for many years. This chapter
seeks to explain why the government and the VCP have promoted
trade union freedom in the new context. The findings show that
provisions of the law have until now been vague and do not specify
how to establish and manage new workers representative organizations
(WROs) in the workplace. Moreover, union subservience to the VCP
and managerially dependent unions still hinder trade union reform.
Many workers doubt the protection and representation of their current
unions and consider leaving them to join new WROs.
... Since then, labor reforms have been ongoing, fluctuating with the vicissitudes of internal factionalism, domestic struggles and geopolitical and -economic shifts. An early attempt to carve out a space of autonomy for the VGCL was halted by the events of 1989-90the Tiananmen protests in China and the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, not least Poland where the first independent union was instrumental in bringing down the regime (Schweisshelm & Do, 2018). In the second half of the 2000s, a wildcat strike wave in export sectors reenergized the reform process. ...
... On the one hand, it introduced quarterly labor-management meetings and for this purpose (only) permitted workers to elect representatives. On the other hand, it gave upper-level VGCL branches the right to represent workers in non-unionized enterprises in collective bargaining and disputes (Schweisshelm & Do, 2018). Although the 2012 labor code is 'frequently interpreted as the introduction of "social dialogue" into the Vietnamese context' (Tran et al., 2017, p. 407), it maintained the monopoly of the VGCL and its subordination to the VCP. ...
The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) deviates from the poor track record of ‘trade and sustainable development’ chapters in EU FTAs. Ahead of ratification, Vietnam embarked upon pathbreaking reforms, culminating in a new labor code and accession to outstanding ILO core conventions. This article assesses the role of the EVFTA in these reforms. Building on literatures on the trade-labor nexus and externalization of EU governance, we call for a more comprehensive analysis of power dynamics in partner countries and address this lacunae by embedding FTAs and labor reforms in a strategic-relational conceptualization of states. We argue that the ‘success’ of the EVFTA was the outcome of specific conjunctures of social forces in, and outside of, state institutions in the EU and Vietnam, and their mediation at the transnational level. Amid free trade skepticism in the EU, particular members of the Parliament and the Council wielded their veto powers to negotiate with Vietnam and pull the Commission into a stronger position. In Vietnam, the external pressure resonated with internal struggles and empowered reformists to drive forward labor reforms. Implementation, however, remains uncertain; and, context-dependent as it was, the EVFTA pre-ratification impact does not easily lend itself to replication in other FTAs.
... We chose three-to five-star hotels rather than lower rating hotels because three-to five-star hotels in Vietnam tend to have a large size with the presence of a trade union. According to Schweisshelm and Do (2018), in Vietnam, more than 50% of employees are unionized and most of them work in medium and large enterprises. We preferred the online survey data collection method to reduce the risks of infection for participants and researchers. ...
Under the lens of conservation of resources and social exchange theories and job demands-resources model, this research aimed at advancing the knowledge regarding the role of trade union support (TUS) in tempering the impact of perceived health risk of COVID-19 (PHRCV19) on frontline hotel employees (FHEs)’ job insecurity and emotional
exhaustion (EE), a research topic that is thus far overlooked. An explanatory sequential mixed-method design was adopted. Quantitative data collected through a two-wave survey from 291 FHEs were performed to test the hypotheses using SmartPLS, and 16 in-depth interviews were then analyzed to gain a deeper understanding of the quantitative
study’s findings and identify the right ways to enhance employee resilience during COVID-19. We found that (1) TUS directly reduces perceived job insecurity (PJI), (2) PHRCV19 has a positive effect on PJI and EE, and (3) PJI positively influences EE; at the same time, PJI partially mediates the PHRCV19–EE relationship. However, the moderating role of TUS on
the impact of PHRCV19 on PJI, and that of PJI on EE, is insignificant. This research also provided practical implications helping reduce FHEs’ PJI and EE.
... The VGCL in contrast has a long history of militancy during wartime, first against French colonialism and then in the south as autonomous unions up to 1975 (Tran 2013, 15-110;Wehrle 2011, 13-45;Schweisshelm and Do 2018). After the war ended in 1975 union officials in the south retained memories of a mission to represent workers, and when Doi moi (renovation of the economy) began officially in 1986, institutionally, ideologically and culturally southern Vietnam had not been fully absorbed into the fold of Party verbiage. ...
... The VGCL in contrast has a long history of militancy during wartime, first against French colonialism and then in the south as autonomous unions up to 1975 (Tran 2013, 15-110;Wehrle 2011, 13-45;Schweisshelm and Do 2018). After the war ended in 1975 union officials in the south retained memories of a mission to represent workers, and when Doi moi (renovation of the economy) began officially in 1986, institutionally, ideologically and culturally southern Vietnam had not been fully absorbed into the fold of Party verbiage. ...
This article explains why Vietnam and China, one-party states that allow only one official trade union, are traversing different paths in their trade unions’ institutional structures, the state’s and trade union’s attitudes towards strikes, their willingness to allow independent trade unions and willingness to engage with the international labour union movement. These will be examined in terms of the path dependency of their recent histories, in which changes have been incremental on a path laid down by pre-existing entrenched institutions, until each national system no longer operated properly and new contingencies obliged the leadership to revamp the system. As a consequence of China’s and Vietnam’s divergent path dependencies, when external contingencies finally forced institutional change, countries have veered onto divergent trajectories – the Trans-Pacific Partnership energising Vietnam to debate the acceptance of autonomous trade unions, while Xi Jinping in China has intensified Party control over industrial relations.
The 2019 Vietnamese Labour Law, coming into effect on 1 January 2021, allows for the establishment of workers' representative organisations, namely Internal Employee Organisations (IEOs), independent from official trade unions of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour. This reflects widespread endemic industrial conflicts marked by illegal wildcat strikes led by unofficial workers' representatives in the absence of effective trade union representation. The new legislative framework can be seen as a significant step towards industrial democracy and there is the potential to see a change of course in Vietnamese industrial relations in regards to representative dynamics at the workplace level, with likely outcomes in terms of working conditions, law enforcement and conflict resolution to be assessed. However, more than two years have transpired since the legislation was enacted, no IEO has been established to date. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of why this is the case. It also demonstrates how the corporatist and authoritarian political system in Vietnam has adapted to sustain its longevity and legitimacy in the era of globalisation. Finally, the paper outlines a research agenda on the conditions of emergence, development and future function of IEOs. ARTICLE HISTORY
This Element analyzes the economic and political forces behind the political marginalization of working-class organizations in the region. It traces the roots of labor exclusion to the geopolitics of the early postwar period when many governments rolled back the left and established labor control regimes that prevented the reemergence of working-class movements. This Element also examines the economic and political dynamics that perpetuated labor's containment in some countries and that produced a resurgence of labor mobilization in others in the 21st century. It also explains why democratization has had mixed effects on organized labor in the region and analyzes three distinctive “anatomies of contention” of Southeast Asia's feistiest labor movements in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
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