Developing union members and establishing grassroots unions is a matter of survival.
In his opening speech, President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang emphasized that 2024 is a year of special significance for the Vietnam Trade Union, the first year of implementing the Resolution of the 13th Congress of the Vietnam Trade Union, the year of celebrating the 95th anniversary of the Founding of the Vietnam Trade Union, and the year the amended and supplemented Trade Union Law was passed by the National Assembly.
With the spirit of promptly putting the Resolution of the 13th Congress of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor into practice, immediately after the congress, the Presidium and the Executive Committee of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor promptly directed the development of Resolutions and programs to concretize and implement the Resolution, identifying the theme of trade union work in 2024, which set out 11 key tasks and solutions and 12 targets to strive for.
Giving opinions on one of the contents of the Draft Report on the results of the Trade Union's work in 2024; The Trade Union's work program in 2025 of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor presented by the Standing Vice President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Thai Thu Xuong is the work of developing union members and establishing grassroots trade unions in 2024.
The plan for developing union members and establishing grassroots unions in 2024 sets out to actually increase the number of union members by 1 million (equivalent to 26% of the target set by the Resolution of the 13th Congress of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor). In many places, the Union has proactively advised the Party Committee, developed plans, consolidated steering committees, working groups, organized surveys and statistics as a basis for developing union members and establishing grassroots unions, demonstrating great political determination. 32 units have achieved and exceeded the targets assigned by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. However, compared to the target set in the 2024 plan, only about 2/3 have been achieved, and the actual increase in some units is still very low compared to the number assigned by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor.
Regarding the work of developing union members and establishing grassroots unions, Mr. Pham Quang Thanh - Chairman of the Hanoi City Labor Federation - said that in 2024, Hanoi established nearly 1,000 grassroots unions but the number of union members developed was low. One of the reasons is that the number of employees of each enterprise is very small...
Mr. Thanh also reflected on the reality of establishing, operating and caring for workers in grassroots unions. From there, he suggested that there should be a special topic on this issue because the trend of workers moving from the formal sector to the informal sector is increasingly common, especially in large cities...
Sharing the same opinion with Mr. Thanh, Ms. Phan Thi Thuy Linh - President of the Da Nang City Labor Federation said that when planning to establish 3 grassroots unions, the number of union members was only 500 people. But when mobilizing and establishing, the number of union members reached 2,000 people. This shows that the shift of workers from the formal sector to the informal sector is happening very quickly and in very large numbers.
From that reality, Mr. Pham Quang Thanh and Ms. Phan Thi Thuy Linh suggested that there should be early research on the activities of grassroots unions, including operating costs...
Mr. To Xuan Thao - Chairman of the Quang Ninh Provincial Federation of Labor, Ms. Nguyen Kim Loan - Chairman of the Binh Duong Provincial Federation of Labor suggested early preparation for the development of union members and establishment of grassroots trade unions according to the development of industrial clusters to be established in localities.
Regarding this content, President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang said that, with the current reality and to meet the requirements of the new situation, it is necessary to soon conduct research on grassroots unions. The theme of activities in 2025 is "Focus on developing union members; participating in building a clean, strong and clean Party".
Besides, developing union members and establishing grassroots unions are vital issues, so we should only discuss and not postpone them to do a good job of developing union members and establishing grassroots unions in 2025.
Focus on the grassroots level directly above the grassroots level
The proposal to issue the Project on "Supporting workers in industrial parks and export processing zones in child care and education for the period 2025 - 2028" also presented by Permanent Vice Chairman Thai Thu Xuong received comments, including considering expanding the supported subjects; quality of the teaching staff, building models, building policies, etc.
Vice President Huynh Thanh Xuan presented the Project "Orientation of foreign information work of Vietnam Trade Union in the new situation". One of the notable points of the Project is to create a breakthrough, promote and improve the effectiveness of using digital media platforms, social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, ...); apply digital technology to gradually transform from traditional methods to a combination of direct and online, virtual reality with new media technologies in the future; promote the implementation of Infographics and other forms of visual information about important foreign affairs activities of the country, of key leaders of the Party, State, and Vietnam Trade Union.
Regarding this issue, according to Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hien - Member of the Presidium of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, Editor-in-Chief of Lao Dong Newspaper, to inform about the activities of the trade union organization abroad, from August 14, Lao Dong Newspaper has had an English page. The special thing here is that it completely uses AI, which can simultaneously translate content into over 100 languages. When it was first put into use, someone needed to proofread and "teach" the AI some words. But at this time, out of 50 articles, only 1 article needs word editing, in that article there are only 1-2 words that need to be edited...
Regarding the Draft Summary of 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 4a/NQ-TLD dated June 24, 2014 of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (11th tenure) on improving the effectiveness of the operations of the Trade Union at the grassroots level to meet the requirements of the workers' movement and Trade Union activities in the new situation, Vice President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Xuan Hung, both the President of the local Labor Federation and the President of the Industry Trade Union all reflected the difficulties in the number of cadres as well as operating costs. Accordingly, in many places, the number of Trade Union cadres at this level is too small compared to the number of grassroots Trade Union focal points. According to President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang, in the coming time, it is necessary to focus on the Trade Union at the grassroots level.
The 8th Conference of the Presidium of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (13th tenure) took place over 2 days, December 5-6.
