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Lawyer Nguyen Huu Hoc - Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association - said that according to current legal regulations, employers (NSDLĐ) must pay salaries directly, fully, and on time to employees (NLĐ). In case employees cannot receive salaries directly, employers can pay salaries to people legally authorized by employees.
Thus, in principle, employers must pay salaries fully and on time to employees. However, in reality, there are times when businesses encounter difficulties and cannot pay salaries immediately to employees. Therefore, the law also stipulates that in cases where due to force majeure reasons, employers have taken all measures to remedy but cannot pay salaries on time, they are not allowed to delay more than 30 days. If salary payment is delayed by 15 days or more, employers must compensate employees with an amount of money at least equal to the interest of the delayed payment amount, calculated according to the deposit interest rate for 01 month announced by the bank where employers open a salary account for employees at the time of salary payment.
Also according to current regulations, when employers owe employees' salaries, this is considered a personal labor dispute because it arises between employees and employers regarding rights related to the implementation of labor contracts.
According to the provisions from Article 182 to Article 190 of the 2019 Labor Code, employees can directly or through their representative (which is a Trade Union organization) or a person authorized by employees to participate in resolving disputes. First of all, employees or authorized persons will negotiate directly with employers. If disputes have not been resolved, they can go through a labor mediator (usually available at the Culture - Social Department, Ward/Commune People's Committee) for mediation.
Please note that, according to Clause 1, Article 190 of the 2019 Labor Code, the statute of limitations for requesting a labor mediator to mediate a personal labor dispute is 6 months from the date of discovering the act that the disputing party believes that its legitimate rights and interests are violated.
In case the mediator has conducted mediation but fails or mediation is successful but the employer still does not pay salary, the employee can themselves or through the Trade Union organization, the person authorized to sue the business to the People's Court where the business is headquartered or where the employee resides to resolve or request the Labor Arbitration Council to resolve.
If requesting the Labor Arbitration Council to resolve disputes, the statute of limitations is 9 months from the date of discovering that their rights are violated. If requesting the Court to resolve, the statute of limitations is 1 year.
In case employees prove that due to force majeure events, objective obstacles or other reasons as prescribed by law, they cannot request within the prescribed time limit, the time of force majeure events, objective obstacles or those reasons is not counted in the statute of limitations for requesting the resolution of personal labor disputes.
