Mr. Nguyen Van Chinh (48 years old) - a shoe sole grinding worker at Amara Vietnam Shoe Company Limited (Nam Dinh) said that he is currently working overtime regularly 2 weeks a day, 2 weeks a night. The total working hours are 10.5 hours a day even though Tet is only a few days away.
“In my company, there are only 1 to 2 months in the middle of the year when there is little work, the rest of the time we always work overtime from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm. Except for the 2 breaks between shifts. Every day we work at least 10.5 hours,” Chinh shared.
Although overtime is often required, according to Mr. Chinh, this is mostly what the workers want. Because if they don't work overtime, their actual income is quite low because the company pays based on time, not output.
The male worker said that if he didn't work overtime, he would only work 8 hours a day, and his highest income would be around 6.5 million VND. Working 2.5 hours of overtime a day would earn him an average of 10 million VND a month.
Plus more than 4 million VND in Tet bonus, with the standard of living in the countryside, according to Mr. Chinh, that is enough to spend for a complete Tet.
When asked if the job was hard, Mr. Chinh said that working overtime during the day was not too tiring. However, working overtime at night, when returning home, his body was tired and he just wanted to go to sleep immediately.
The male worker shared that next year, if his health declines, he will apply to move to a department that only works during the day. Even though his income is lower than now, Mr. Chinh is still willing to take care of his health in the long run.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Dieu (38 years old) - a garment worker in Thai Binh said that this year, until the 25th of December, her group of workers will work until 8:30 pm before getting a break.
Even during the 30-minute break at 5 p.m., Ms. Dieu doesn't want to go out to buy food. In her bag, the female worker always has a box of milk and some cakes to energize her body for a short 10 minutes to continue working.
Ms. Dieu said that although the February product code was just shipped, due to the long Tet holiday (11 days), the company still required workers to work late overtime. Although she was very tired, Ms. Dieu still consoled herself and tried her best because it was very difficult to ask to go home early.
Sharing more, Ms. Dieu said that although it was 7:30 am, she and many workers were already at the company from 7 am. The reason for arriving early was to handle the previous day's inventory as well as to not be too stressed during the long working day.
Discussing salary and year-end bonus, Ms. Dieu said that her December salary was nearly 12 million VND thanks to overtime; her average monthly bonus was 9.5 million VND. With this amount of money, the female worker is quite comfortable in spending and shopping for Tet.
