No end in sight for Vietnam strike

A strike by over 2,000 workers at a South Korean-owned footwear factory in Vietnam reached its seventh day Wednesday with no end in sight, labour and company officials said.

The length of the strike at the Samil Tong Sang Company shoe plant was unusual for Vietnam, where most strikes are resolved in a few days with the intercession of government-affiliated union officials.

“There has been no progress, no agreement between the company and workers so far,” said Nguyen Van Duc, deputy chairman of the labour union in Thuan An district of Binh Duong province. The union is mediating between the company and the workers who called the wildcat strike.

District police official Hoang Anh Tuan said the workers, who walked off their jobs on Thursday, were protesting peacefully, but tensions rose when the company called in the strike’s leaders and threatened them.

The workers were not agreed among themselves on how much of a salary increase they were demanding, which made negotiations difficult, company officer Le Thi Huyen said.

The state-run newspaper Lao Dong reported most of the workers were asking for an increase of 200,000 dong (10 dollars) per month.

Van Thi Mong Linh of the company’s personnel department said the firm was already paying 1.32 million dong per month, 130,000 dong higher than the government-set minimum wage.

Talks between labour officials and the company were scheduled to continue Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Labour, 96 wildcat strikes took place in Vietnam in the first quarter of this year.

Ministry figures showed strikes dropped from 650 in 2008 to 216 in 2009 and most involved companies in the textile and garment sectors, which have foreign investors.

Tags: Vietnam strike