Is it okay to ask for dialogue at work?

Lawyer Nguyen Thi Thuy, YouMe Law Firm LLC replied:

Article 40 of Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Labor Code on working conditions and labor relations stipulates the organization of dialogue upon request of one or more parties as follows:

1. Dialogue shall be organized upon request of one or more parties when the content of the dialogue request of the party requesting the dialogue ensures the following conditions:

a) For the employer, the content of the dialogue request must be agreed by the legal representative of the employer;

b) For the employee side, the content of the dialogue request must be agreed by at least 30% of the number of members representing the employee side participating in the dialogue as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 38 of this Decree.

2. No later than 05 working days from the date of receipt of the dialogue request specified in Clause 1 of this Article, the party receiving the dialogue request must respond in writing, agreeing on the time and place for the dialogue. The employer and the employee's dialogue representative are responsible for coordinating and organizing the dialogue.

3. The dialogue process must be recorded in minutes and signed by representatives of the parties participating in the dialogue as prescribed in Clause 4, Article 39 of this Decree.

4. No later than 03 working days from the end of the dialogue, the employer is responsible for publicly announcing at the workplace the main contents of the dialogue; the employee representative organization (if any), the employee dialogue representative group (if any) disseminates the main contents of the dialogue to employee members.

Clause 3, Article 38 of Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Labor Code on working conditions and labor relations stipulates the number and composition of participants in the dialogue as follows:

3. The determination of the list of representative members participating in the dialogue between the employer and the employee as prescribed in Clauses 1 and 2 of this Article shall be carried out periodically at least once every 02 years and shall be publicly announced at the workplace. During the period between the 02 periods, determining the members participating in the dialogue, if a representative member cannot continue to participate, the employer or each organization representing employees, the group representing employees in the dialogue shall consider and decide to add a replacement member of their organization or group and publicly announce it at the workplace.

Thus, workers can request to organize dialogue at the workplace.