Vietnamese workers have to struggle with Chinese for jobs, on home market

On the construction sites in Vietnam, where Chinese enterprises act as the general contractors, Vietnamese workers have to struggle with Chinese for jobs.

Wages for Vietnamese lower for Chinese workers

Chinese and Japanese enterprises won the bids to become the EPC (engineering, construction, procurement) contractors of the Hai Phong thermopower plant.

The construction of the thermopower plants 1 and 2 was kicked off in November 2005, while Chinese contractors are the overwhelming majority on the construction site.

A senior executive of the Hai Phong 1 thermopower plant which has been put into operation, with four power generation units with the capacity of 300 MW per each, contractors need to have at least 4000 workers working at the same time on the construction site.

Therefore, the Hai Phong thermopower plant was hoped to help create thousands of jobs to local workers. However, this has not come true in reality.

“In the peak period, in 2008-2009, the Chinese contractors brought 2000 Chinese workers to the construction site, including the ones who took simple jobs which can be absolutely undertaken by Vietnamese laborers,” said Nguyen The Khang, Head of the Personnel Department of the Hai Phong Thermopower plant.

Sources said that the actual number of Chinese workers was higher than the above figure, believing that the number of Chinese workers on the site once reached 3000.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese workers have to struggle to find jobs at the big project. Nguyen Van N, a local laborer, who is working for the Hai Phong 2 power plant, said that it is very difficult to obtain a job on the site. N said that when he worked for the Hai Phong 1 power plant, he just earned less than 100,000 dong per day for his work as mason or porter.

N said that local workers can earn much less than Chinese ones. A Vietnamese welder, for example, can earn 150,000-180,000 dong per day, while the pay for a Chinese welder is double or triple.

“Contractors and laborers negotiate about the wages directly, not through the project’s investor. Therefore, I do not know to whom I have to claim about the low wages,” N said.

“There always exists the discriminatory treatment to Chinese and Vietnamese workers,” N continued.

Also according to N, if Vietnamese workers directly negotiate with Chinese contractors, they will get 100 percent of their daily wages. Meanwhile, if the workers get jobs via Vietnamese interpreters, they would not get the full pay. For example, workers would get 130,000 dong a day instead of 150,000 dong. However, no one dares complain about that, because they want jobs.

“If you complain, you will be sacked. If you don’t want this job, there will be others who replace you,” N said.

Similarly, a Vietnamese worker who is in charge of kitchen duty can earn 2 million dong a month, while a security guard can earn 1.5 million dong, and no allowance. Meanwhile, a Chinese security guard at the My Son residential quarter is paid 10 million dong per month, or 10 times higher than the pay to a Vietnamese worker.

Project’s investor has no right to intervene

Khang has confirmed that there exist the gaps in the pay for Vietnamese and the pay for Chinese workers.

Ha Van Gian, Deputy General Director of the Hai Phong Thermopower Plant, said that Chinese enterprises act as the contractors, who implement the BT contract (build – transfer), which means that they build the plant and then transfer to the Vietnamese side. Therefore, the Vietnamese side only has the right to supervise and speed and the quality of the project, and it does not have the right to intervene the contractors’ use of laborers.

Khang said that the Vietnamese investor once asked the Chinese contractors to use Vietnamese workers, but the contractors reasoned many factors, including the language barrier, to continue using Chinese workers.

Source: SGTT