Kelvin Cao

How difficult is freedom of establishment and operation of trade unions in capitalist society?   I've seen a lot of forum posts and listened to professionals share many difficulties about unions in the United States.   For example:   Negotiations to sign collective bargaining in the United States can last longer than 5 years to successfully sign. However, in Vietnam, the statutory prescribed time to signed a collective labor agreement is very clear (about 1 month) bringing many benefits to the laborers. So, what benefits do freedom of establishment and operation of trade unions in capitalist countries bring to employees? I always want to know more and more!!! Cao Nghĩa TDTU

Freedom of establishment and operation of trade unions in capitalist - How difficult? I've seen a lot of posts on forums and listened to experienced professionals share about many difficulties of the unions in the United States. For example : Negotiations to sign the collective bargaining  in the United States can be last longer than 5 years or longer to successfully signed, or would never be signed. However, in Vietnam, the statutory prescribed time to signed a collective labor agreement is very clear ( about 1 month ) brings many benefits to the laborers. Thus, the freedom of establishment and operation of trade unions in capitalist countries brings what benefits for employees? I always wanted to know more and more ??? Trong Nghia TDTU

Nowadays, it’s very uncommon that workers have a balanced meal at work in Vietnam. The qualify of the meal often does not supply enough nutrition to fuel the labor power of workers. This is one of the  reasons why many workers go on strike for improved meals, but largely it still not been resolved. Currently, “quality meals” are only included in the labor contracts of between 15 and 20 thousand workers in the country. This often includes a little savory soup with rice. Sometimes they also include a few thin slices of meat or a small amount of fried fish ... So the question arises as to the quality of such shift meal can reconstruct data is labor-workers or not? There have been many cases where leaders (managers or worker leaders)  listen to workers complained about their meal and share the difficulties of the meal with them. But too often, the leadership does not have pity. When workers eat stale rancid food how can they continue working? This shows that the amoun...

Nowadays, it’s very difficult to balance the meals for workers. The quality of the meal  is not high enough and does not provide enough nutrition to replenish the labor power of workers. That is why a lot of workers for the company went on strike for improved meals, but the issue is still not resolved. Currently, only about 15 thousand to 20 thousand Vietnamese dong on average, are spent on each worker’s meal, which may provide for a little soup with rice. Sometimes meals consist only of a few thin slices of meat or a small fried fish ... So the question that arises as to the shift in the quality of meals is whether higher quality food will increase the amount of labor produced by each worker ? There have been cases where leaders listened to workers who complained about their meal and went down to have lunch with the workers in other to share in the experience of their difficulties. However, if the leadership thinks the stale food smells rancid, how could leadership expect wor...

Continuing the series of articles about strikes, today I will write about  the recent strike situation in Vietnam. 1.      Total number of strikes + In 2008: There were 762 strikes but in 2014 there were only 303 strikes + Number of strikes in 2014:           FDI : 68%           State enterprises: 31.167%          Enterprises to freely: 0.33% + Number of Strikes in Foreign-Invested Firms + Strikes by industry in 2014          Garment                    114      Because there are a lot of garment factories in Vietnam and many foreign companies have started producing here, there were many changes in the recent ly           Footwear industry    54 This is one of the main industr...

Female employees in foreign countries: Disadvantaged Up to now, there are 500.00 female employees work in 40 countries around the world, the proportion of female employees is about 30%-35% and they are underpaided and not to be protected by local law. The reasons: 1. The labor export companies(200) do not provide sufficient information to the employees: + They just provide the good informations + They do not provide the hazards/risks in the foreign countries 2. The policy of some countries + Directors cac terminate the labor contract labor for pregnant women(in Japan)  3. The worker with low skill levels + Female employees are not to be trained skills labor before + Female employees subject to the now poverty reduction should go abroad Facing many risks: 1. Women workers vulnerable to seduction 2. Female employees sexually abused 3. Female employees are exploited labor So the solutions: 1. Need to create better conditions for women io exercise th...

Not enough votes for TPP trade deal... House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, said Thursday that the landmark  Trans-Pacific Partnership  trade deal doesn't have enough votes to pass Congress right now. "I don't think the votes are there right now because of the concerns about what's in the TPP," Ryan told reporters at his weekly press conference. "The point is we shouldn't bring something up if we're not confident that we have the support there for it so I think the president and the administration has a lot more work to do to get support for this document because there are some legitimate concerns about it. "TPP has great potential," Ryan told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in October, "but we want to scrub this trade agreement to make sure that it reaches and meets the standards that we call for in TPA." Its too Hard :(  Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/speaker-ryan-not-enough-votes-for-tpp-trade-deal/

The Biggest Strike in 2016 at Pouchen Company. On 27/2/2016, over 17.000 people of Pouchen Company (Taiwan Company in Viet Nam: Nike shoe) strike because: The Company implementation of " effective management policies on work ". The company will classified the employees into A B C D , the highest point is 100 point. If the employees breaking the rule, they will be cut down the wages, but the employees don't agree with this policies , so They strike The employees stopped to work in 3 day and came to the main street to strike . Some pictures: The results : The Federation of Labour of Dong Nai province intervene and The company agree to removed this policies and compensate the wage in 3 days for the employees. So: What do you think about this Strike, Please leave a comment about this problem to let me know what is different between US, another country and VietNam about the Strike. Thanks you so much! Cao Nghia TDTU

The COST of Ethic in Apparel - A non-reason What of all that are buyers aware of, and how do they use it? what price a living wage? This is the second of the two questions for which the most insightful research with fairly hard data has been published by Prof. Doug Miller from Northumbria University in Newcastle. The two most relevant papers in this context are: ‘ What price a living wage ‘ and ‘ Towards Sustainable Labour Costing in the Global Apparel Industry ‘ The situation of the buyer end of the value chain: Historically, labour cost in garment manufacture has been determined by multiplying- the estimated amount of time taken to complete a garment - by either an individual, or a group of workers by the actual labour cost which is either the minimum wage or the prevailing wage (minimum wage plus additional wage elements existing at the factory in question) expressed as a minute value. In brief, buyer and supplier only talk about ‘cost’ as a lumb sum, but never about its diff...

                                                   Viet Nam Top 5 Inports/Exports What will go on when we join TPP  @@

Manufacturing a shirt in the US costs 40 times what it would cost to make it in Bangladesh. What do you think about this, really different between USA and Bangladesh @@ ! Source: https://www.facebook.com/quanhelaodong/?fref=ts

Over 40% enterprise in the world don't want to augment the salary for the worker  :( SAD

Viet Nam’s entry into TPP may be delayed if reform is not available. In 2008, there were 1020 wildcat strikes. Right now, collective disputes usually turn into wildcats. A committee of government, VGCL, MOLISA comes in and gets a result. But this is a very sensitive area. Three potential types of organizing might take place: The VGCL reforms quickly and develops a range of unions and representational processes; Some international unions and others outside Viet Nam present themselves and offer alternatives; Some employers may set up private unions which will block the organizing of new unions. Cao Nghia TDTU

The worker in Viet Nam, Source: Taking Stock 

SEMINAR: “THE IMPACT OF TPP ON LABOUR AND TRADE UNIONS” Morning of 14/01/2016, Ton Duc Thang University hosted the seminar “The impact of TPP on labour and trade unions”. Featuring participation by Mr. Dang Trung Dung, Deputy Director of the VGCL International Department; Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Yen, representative of ILO Vietnam; experts, scientists, professors and researchers in Labour Relations from institutes, confederations of labour and universities inside and outside Vietna m. Mr. Kent Wong, Director of the UCLA Labor Center, was the keynote speaker at the seminar. Participants of the seminar had the opportunities to learn about labour and trade unions issues relating to the TPP, its impact on Vietnam labour and trade unions, as well as the experiences on international trade unions activities of TPP participating countries. Some Pictures: Source: http://increti.tdt.edu.vn/ Cao Nghia TDTU