The number of labour strikes this year is lower than that of 2008 after the implementation of an instruction from the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat . . .

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has also ordered that houses be built for workers at industrial parks.

The main causes for the strikes were slow salary payments, failure to pay salary hikes, unpaid social and health insurance, and no Tet bonuses.

Unions had settled the strikes promptly and urged enterprises to ensure employees’ rights and benefits, Chinh said.

Nearly 10,000 company unions exist nationwide.

According to the unions’ initial figures for provinces and cities nationwide, brochures with information on laws involving employee-employer relationship have been distributed to many workers. This had helped reduce the number of strikes, Chinh said.

Pham Minh Huan, deputy minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said workers’ lives had been improved.

The average salary for a labourer this year reaches VND2.7 million (US$146.7) per month, air increase of 6.5 per cent over last year.

Authorities in some provinces had supported labourers’ lives, Huan said.

For example, HCM City has set up a fund to provide payment for transport fees to the neediest workers so they can visit their homes for Tet holiday. Workers in Dong Nai Province receive money to pay electricity and water costs.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has also ordered that houses be built for workers at industrial parks.

As of July, HCM City has provided more than 430,000 accommodations to workers, with 16,000 in Ha Noi also receiving housing.

Other provinces including Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Binh Duong have been building houses for workers at their industrial parks.

Land shortage

However, Chinh said that the number of houses for workers only meets 5-7 per cent of workers’ demand, and only 50 per cent of the houses built from State budget funds had been rented.

He said there was a severe shortage of land and that preferential policies designed by the State to attract investors had not met the requirements of investors.

Rental prices, service fees and management of housing had not been in line with labourer’s needs, Chinh said.

He asked labour confederations to work more closely with authorities and offer preferential incentives to attract investors to build housing for workers.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News