Minimum wage is 5 - 7% higher than the prescribed level
The protection of the legal and legitimate rights of union members and workers is focused on by the Capital Trade Union through promoting negotiation, dialogue, and signing of Collective Labor Agreements (CLAs), especially at enterprise-level unions.
In many enterprises, the Executive Committee (EC) of the Union representing the employees negotiates and signs a Collective Labor Agreement with the employer, including contents for employees to enjoy many benefits higher than the law, such as a minimum wage 5-7% higher than the minimum wage prescribed by the Government; working hours of 7 hours/day or 1-2 Saturdays off per month; support for shift meals worth 20,000 - 30,000 VND; support for accommodation or travel expenses, childcare expenses, etc.
There are enterprises that have conducted dialogues with employers to protect the rights of female workers. For example, at International Medical Consulting Company Limited, some rights of female workers have been agreed upon through dialogues. With the direction and guidance of the upper-level trade union, the Company's grassroots trade union executive board discussed and dialogued frankly, openly, democratically, in accordance with the procedures and content prescribed by law and the democratic regulations at the grassroots level.
Thereby, the dialogue contents and implementation measures were agreed upon, including: The company supports employees raising children under 6 years old with a level of 100,000 VND/month/child; The company organizes training courses on health care, beauty, soft skills... for female employees once a year; The company has a reasonable job arrangement policy to support paying health insurance/social insurance for 6 months for female employees with serious illnesses or long-term treatment who have to stay at home...
The City Labor Federation strives for 100% of state-owned enterprise trade unions to negotiate and sign collective labor agreements, with 60% of the agreements reaching type A and B; for non-state enterprise trade unions, the annual number of collective labor agreements will increase by at least 650 copies compared to the previous year (excluding the number of labor agreements that are amended, supplemented, or re-signed). Of which, the quality of type A and B collective labor agreements will reach at least 55% or more.
Focus on the grassroots
“Improving the quality of representation work, caring for and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of union members and employees; Promoting dialogue, negotiation and signing of the Collective Labor Agreement for the period 2023 - 2028” is one of the three programs to implement the Resolution of the 17th Hanoi City Trade Union Congress.
The Hanoi City Labor Federation stated that the upper-level unions need to focus on the grassroots level, directing grassroots unions to coordinate with employers to organize dialogues at enterprises. In particular, they need to strengthen supervision of the implementation process of all levels and sectors after the dialogue, ensuring that proposals and recommendations are resolved thoroughly and promptly, meeting the legitimate aspirations of union members and workers.
For negotiating and signing the Collective Labor Agreement, union officials must be proactive in regularly grasping the thoughts, aspirations, proposals and recommendations of union members and employees so that the collection of opinions from union members and employees is substantial and objective. On that basis, do a good job of preparing for negotiations and forecasting situations that may arise.
In particular, the City Labor Federation has developed and published a "Guideline for negotiating and signing collective labor agreements at enterprises" including forms and instructions following a shortened process from 7 steps to 3 steps, easy to understand and implement, along with a bank of proposed negotiation contents, for grassroots unions to refer to when proposing to employers.
Currently, in the city, over 81% of enterprises have trade unions that have signed collective labor agreements. The rate of collective labor agreements of type A and B accounts for over 47%. The special point is that in addition to the content of the signed agreements on employee benefits, the collective labor agreements have focused on bonuses, rest hours, and improving the quality of shift meals for employees.
