Probe into contract labour to help protect worker rights

HCM CITY — Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs yesterday began inspecting labour leasing services in five provinces and cities and asked 20 other localities to do the same.

Workers, who were contracted out to companies by the labour services, risked missing out on benefit entitlements and being underpaid, Dang Duc San, head of the ministry's Legislation Department, said.

In Viet Nam, labour leasing services employ, train and sign contracts with clients and lease them out as workers to companies. The service first emerged here in 2001.

Such companies were not sufficiently regulated under the labour laws despite their large presence around industrial parks especially in Ha Noi, HCM City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Can Tho, San said.

Employees could be exploited because they were kept ignorant of the agreements made between their employer and their labour leaser even though many of the contracts were long-term. Currently regulations only applied to short term contracts.

In some cases the labour leasing companies paid salaries less than the amount agreed with the employer, San said.

He said that neither the company nor the labour leaser accepted responsibility to pay the workers' health and social insurance.

According to San, most labour leasing companies were only licensed to introduce jobs, not to lease out labour.

The inspection would be conducted in Ha Noi, HCM City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Can Tho by the end of September and authorities in 20 other provinces have been told to conduct similar inspections and report to the ministry.

The management offices would be able to use the findings to issue regulations to protect workers' rights, San said.

The ministry would soon issue regulations that restrict the services to arrange only short-term labour leasing agreements.

Changes needed to made so that for long-term contracts employees could sign directly with the company they work for, he said. — VNS

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Vietnam SE Asia’s second largest beer consumer

Brewers are trying to capitalise on Vietnam's beer market which is forecast to be one of the region's largest

Photo: AFP

Euromonitor International has predicted that Vietnam’s beer market will continue to grow by 5.6 percent in the next few years, following Laos and Cambodia in Southeast Asia.

According to the global market research company, Vietnam is currently the second biggest consumer of beer in Southeast Asia after Cambodia. In 2009, the country consumed 1.6 billion liters of beer, a surge of 56 percent over 2004.

These days, most of the world biggest beer producers are present in Vietnam, including Budweiser, Sappora, San Miguel and Fosters.

Most recently, Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) from Singapore teamed up with Vietnam’s Saigon Trading Group (SATRA) to set up a joint venture called Vietnam Breweries Ltd (VBL) in central Da Nang City.

Last weekend, the VBL commissioned a production line with the capacity to produce 50,000 bottles of ‘La Rue’ beer an hour.

As one of the first beer producers in Vietnam, right after the country opened up its doors 20 years ago, APB plans to invest US$100 million in Vietnam’s beer industry over the next 18 months.

Japan’s Sapporo also plans to link up with Tobacco Vietnam to produce beer from 2012.

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Vietnam launches Green Ideas Contest

Toyota Vietnam, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and Training, the General Department of the Environment’s Energy Saving Office, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, on August 29 launched its Green Idea Contest 2010 under the topic Sustainable Energy Use.

The annual contest aims to raise public and especially youth awareness of environmental protection, improving environmental quality, and sustainable energy use. This year’s contest hopes to find practical and feasible new ideas in economical, efficient and renewable energy use as well as alternative energy sources.

“We hope to find young people’s most feasible ideas to efficiently use natural resources and fuel, solutions of economical energy use, restoring and balancing eco-system, and coping with climate change,” said Toyota Vietnam deputy general director Dang Phan Thu Huong.

Twenty prizes worth a total of VND235 million (US$12,200 ) will be awarded, including a VND30 million ($1,500) first prize.

The top two finishers will also receive funding worth VND250 million ($13,000) to put their ideas into practice and contribute to improving environmental quality in Vietnam.

Vietnamese or foreign individuals or groups studying, working or living in Vietnam and aged 15-35 years old are encouraged to enter the contest.

Contest entries must be received by 5pm, January 28, 2011. The judging board will then select up to 20 finalists from the papers received, who will be invited to made an in-person presentation.

Entries must be made to Room 201, Sao Bac Building, 4 Da Tuong street, Hanoi, or by email to ytuongxanh2@gmail.com . For further information, visit the website http://www.gogreen.com.vn.
 

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Police bust bride parade for Koreans in HCMC

Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday caught three Korean nationals including a marriage broker choosing Vietnamese brides from among 17 women paraded for them.

Among the Vietnamese caught at the scene were a translator, three brokers who also supplied the bride candidates between 18 and 20 years of age.

The Korean husbands-to-be and broker were picked up at the Tan Son Nhat Airport and taken straight to the house in Binh Chanh District where the Vietnamese women were paraded in front of them.

The translator, Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 26, who directly dealt with the Korean broker, told the police she had so far provided her services for three illegal marriage brokerages for Korean men at the same house this year for US$25 a day.

The suppliers of the girls will get a further VND2.8 million (US$144.30) for each one chosen by the Korean men, Tuoi said.

Most of the girls were brought from their families in the Mekong Delta. They stayed with the suppliers, were served daily meals and VND300,000 ($15.46) a month.

Police are investigating the case further.

Over the last two decades, poverty has driven thousands of women from poor families, especially the Mekong Delta, to marry older men, mainly from South Korea and Taiwan, despite language and cultural barriers.

Many of them are alienated and mistreated.

Statistics from the South Korean Consulate General in HCMC show that around 27,500 Vietnamese women had been granted marriage visas by 2008 and around 8,000 such visas were granted in 2009 alone.

This means around 35,500 Vietnamese women had migrated to South Korea after marriage by the end of 2009.

Most of these marriages were arranged by illegal brokers.

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Police bust bride parade for Koreans in HCMC

Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday caught three Korean nationals including a marriage broker choosing Vietnamese brides from among 17 women paraded for them.

Among the Vietnamese caught at the scene were a translator, three brokers who also supplied the bride candidates between 18 and 20 years of age.

The Korean husbands-to-be and broker were picked up at the Tan Son Nhat Airport and taken straight to the house in Binh Chanh District where the Vietnamese women were paraded in front of them.

The translator, Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 26, who directly dealt with the Korean broker, told the police she had so far provided her services for three illegal marriage brokerages for Korean men at the same house this year for US$25 a day.

The suppliers of the girls will get a further VND2.8 million (US$144.30) for each one chosen by the Korean men, Tuoi said.

Most of the girls were brought from their families in the Mekong Delta. They stayed with the suppliers, were served daily meals and VND300,000 ($15.46) a month.

Police are investigating the case further.

Over the last two decades, poverty has driven thousands of women from poor families, especially the Mekong Delta, to marry older men, mainly from South Korea and Taiwan, despite language and cultural barriers.

Many of them are alienated and mistreated.

Statistics from the South Korean Consulate General in HCMC show that around 27,500 Vietnamese women had been granted marriage visas by 2008 and around 8,000 such visas were granted in 2009 alone.

This means around 35,500 Vietnamese women had migrated to South Korea after marriage by the end of 2009.

Most of these marriages were arranged by illegal brokers.

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City factory fakes imported cosmetic brands

Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday found a lot of fake imported cosmetics, shampoos and shower creams made with chemicals bought at a wholesale market in the city.

A factory raid found some people mixing chemicals to pour into used empty bottles of shampoo, creams and other cosmetic products.

Investigators said the factory bought material from the Kim Bien Market, a major chemical supplier in the city.

People at the factory also did the bottling, pasted an anti-fake stamp and the label of Thanh Truc Cosmetics Production and Commerce, Ltd. on each bottle before they were sold as imported items.

The police have sealed 2,200 cosmetics bottles of different brands such as Young One, Mena, See Na, hundreds of shampoo and shower cream bottles, besides dozens of thousands of empty bottles waiting to be filled.

According to a local police officer, the factory, owned by Tran Dinh Ngoc, had been licensed to distribute several cosmetics products from Thailand and Malaysia.

But for the past one year, Ngoc had stopped importing products and had workers make the products with cheap chemicals at home, he said.

The products were mostly sold to workers at industrial zones, poor residential areas and newly-opened shops.

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Dong Nai farmers agree to drop lawsuit against river polluter

The majority of affected farmers in Dong Nai province have voted to accept Vedan Vietnam's compensation offer for its polluting the Thi Vai River between 1994-2008.

On Friday and Saturday, August 27-28, representatives from the Dong Nai Farmers Association said that more than 5,000 surveys were distributed to the affected farmers.

All but 13 farmers opted to accept Vedan’s offer to pay a total of VND119.5 billion (US$6.1 million) in compensation, the association said.  

They have also agreed to drop their private suits against the company.

In addition to the 13 farmers who opted to take up lawsuits against Vedan, 41 farmers have refused to drop their existing suits against the Taiwanese MSG manufacturer, the farmers association said.

Tran Van Quang, vice chairman of the Dong Nai Farmers Association, said they will ask the Dong Nai People’s Committee how to handle the hold-outs.

Still, many farmers who agreed to Vedan’s offer said they aren’t really satisfied with the compensation, but they are relieved that they will get something for their trouble, VnExpress reported.

“Most of the people here agreed [to the offer]; I couldn’t refuse it, as majority rules,” Bui Ngoc Truyen from Long Thanh District, told the news website, adding that about ten farmers authorized him to vote for them.

Some said they accepted the offer, because they don't see any hope in suing the company.

In 2008, Vedan was caught discharging untreated effluents directly into the Thi Vai River through secret underground pipes.

Government inspectors found that the company had been doing so for some 14 years.

The discovery sparked public outcry which kept going up as the company declined to meet the compensation requests of the affected farmers. Over the past year, it had extended meager offers to the farmers.

This prompted pledges from authorities in Ho Chi Minh City and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province to help the affected farmers.

Vicitms of the pollution in the hardest hit province of Dong Nai, however, were largely left in the dust.

The Dong Nai Farmers Association had, at one stage, declined to back affected farmers in filing a lawsuit against the company.

Representatives from the association claimed it would be too difficult to prove the extent of the damage caused by the company in court.

Farmers willing to go ahead with the lawsuit were backed by lawyers from HCMC who expressed confidence in a victory. Later, Dong Nai authorities ordered local lawyers to join the cause.

Following a widescale public outcry and consumer boycotting, early this month Vedan agreed to pay farmers in Ba Ria – Vung Tau and HCMC VND53.6 billion (S$2.8 million), and VND45.7 billion (US$2.39 million), respectively.

It also offered to pay Dong Nai's farmers $ 6.1 million, but the provincial authorities since then were yet to come to conclusion on the offer.

The sums were authorized by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. 

So far farmers in Ba Ria – Vung Tau and HCMC have received 50 percent of the promised compensation.The other half of the compensation is expected to be paid out by January 14, 2011.

Until then, the affected farmers in both of these localities have agreed to postpone their lawsuits against Vedan.

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