On the morning of May 6, at He Vi Trading and Production Joint Stock Company (Quarter 4, Hoa Loi Ward, Ho Chi Minh City), the morning coffee program - listening to the voices of union members and workers took place.
This is the first program to be organized with the participation of leaders of Hoa Loi ward, business leaders, leaders of the Ho Chi Minh City Trade Union and 125 workers.
The organizers have arranged space for workers to have breakfast, drink coffee, and chat with trade union officials, local leaders, and business leaders.
Participating in this activity, workers were directly exchanged and proposed to local leaders and business leaders.
In fact, the morning coffee model in Hoa Loi ward is not new in terms of idea, but it is noteworthy in its approach when bringing dialogue down to the workplace, putting workers in the center of an open exchange space. In which, the highlight is that workers sit together to drink coffee, have breakfast, and chat directly with local leaders.
The dialogue at this morning coffee session is also a substantive dialogue when there is no script, no questions that have been prepared in advance. And workers talked about very specific things around them such as flooded roads to work, lack of lights, difficulty accessing clean water; the story of vaccines at health stations, medicines at hospitals; or inconveniences in administrative procedures...
On the opposite side, morning coffee sessions like this will also help the government and businesses "hear" clearly and "hear" more. The government and businesses "hear" not only to know, but to understand the specific problems that exist at the grassroots level. From there, answering and resolving is no longer general, but can go into each task, each route, each service.
The positive point is that right at the dialogue, local leaders directly responded, clearly defining the matters under their authority to be handled, and the matters that need coordination to be proposed.
This is very important, because dialogue is only meaningful when it is associated with the responsibility of resolving. Workers feel that their voice is not only listened to and received by local government leaders but also transformed into specific actions.
Of course, a morning coffee session cannot solve all problems immediately. But if morning coffee sessions like this are organized regularly and monitored, with clear feedback and results, this can completely become an effective dialogue channel, supplementing traditional forms of contact.
A morning cup of coffee is "commonplace in the district" for all of us. But a morning cup of coffee like the one that just took place at He Vi Trading and Production Joint Stock Company (Quarter 4, Hoa Loi Ward, Ho Chi Minh City), if maintained and replicated, it can become the starting point for substantial, long-term changes for the working community in particular and people in general in many localities.
