Workers at a Malaysian firm in Ho Chi Minh City wait after their boss left Vietnam while still owing them VND100million

Pham Thi Trinh, a leather shoe worker in the southern province of Binh Duong, has been at home without work or pay for three months after her South Korean bosses suddenly disappeared towards the end of last year.

The 29-year-old and several other workers returned to the company at Tan Dinh Industrial Zone in Ben Cat District on Tuesday to read a notice posted by local authorities saying the government would pay the 669 workers with provincial funds.

Trinh used to get paid regularly by Hason Ltd. and the company didn’t miss a paycheck through the economic crisis in 2008, she said. But in August last year, she heard that general director Oh Young Hwan and his deputy Park Joung An had gone home to South Korea before paying June and July’s salaries.

The Hason bosses were just two of ten company heads that left foreign-owned companies in Binh Duong last year. The group owed a total of 2,800 workers’ salaries, social insurance contributions and other allowances worth VND12.6 billion (US$682,000) in total.

“We were shocked to hear that our boss fled,” said Trinh, who worked at Hason for three years for nearly VND1.7 million a month. “He still owed us our June and July salaries, social insurance contributions and retirement allowances.”

Her colleague Tran Thi Huong from Nghe An Province in the central region said she just hoped money from the province could help her clear her debts. “I don’t expect there will be money for me to go home for Tet (lunar New Year).

“I almost collapsed when I heard the director had gone because I had promised my landlord I would pay back rent,” Huong said.

Huong, 23, has since been living with friends because she still owes her previous landlord four months in rent.

“We worked hard for a living, but they simply bilked our salary,” she said.

The Ben Cat District People’s Court has received letters of accusation from 300 workers at Hason asking for salary and social insurance contributions.

The court has also subpoenaed the company director.

Nguyen Van Khuong, vice chairman of Binh Duong Labor Union, said the provincial government has asked the Finance Department to take VND1.1 billion

to pay salaries to the workers so that they could return home for Tet in the coming weeks.

The union has suggested the courts force Hason to pay social insurance for its workers.

Besides the Hason case, Khuong said VND2.6 billion from the province budget had been paid so far to workers whose bosses left suddenly, but some 857 victims since late 2008 still had not received anything as the union didn’t have enough money.

The companies have been affected by the economic crisis and most of them lack capital, he said.

Bosses running away from paying salaries and other allowances made headlines in 2008 and 2009 as well. Most culprits were at industrial zones in the southern region. Several South Korean firms, including Sunrising Kim Vina, were mentioned in earlier cases.

In Ho Chi Minh City, which neighbors Binh Duong, 11 bosses ran away in 2009, leaving nearly 3,000 workers with empty pockets.

The city Labor Union said it is going to pay salaries to workers whose bosses left from the beginning of 2009 and return money to the city budget by selling the companies’ properties.

The city government has ordered the Department of External Affairs to work with embassies in Vietnam and the Immigration Management Department to stop foreign bosses from leaving the country without settling debts.

In December, the director of Viet Anh Sang Co. in Cu Chi District disappeared after owing 192 workers more than VND600 million in total.

In October, 500 workers from the Taiwan-owned garment firm Duc Quan Company lodged complaints after their boss left shortly before payday, taking with him all the money in the company bank account. The company owed workers VND1 billion in salaries and VND1.8 billion in social insurance payments.

Reported by Hoang Tuan-Bao Thien