Kelvin Cao

Ho Chi Minh, 11pm, 19/11/2016 I was really surprised when I checked e-mail this morning, actually it was a shock to me. I have just thought that the TPP really good for many country, specially is VietNam, but, the more I learn, the more I'll see these difficulties as well as the advantages about TPP. For example: Here is just a mall things I know from Tim Canova, He said that: If passed, the TPP would outsource millions of our service jobs, raised prescription drug prices. endangered the open internet, and undermined our food safety, health and environmental protections. Long before I took on Wasserman Schultz, I was a law professor speaking out against the corporate trade agenda – the so-called Washington-Wall Street Consensus that gave us NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), permanent normal trade relations with the People’s Republic of China and other repressive regimes, and now the TPP.  In the next week, Progress For All will be sponsoring a major public forum ...

Ho CHi Minh City,19/11/2016. How TPP impact on VietNam in some days later, may be farewell to TPP. We study alot about how difficults when VietNam has free union in TPP, but, Trump won, and TPP with VietNam may be no chance.  So I wonder what will going on next, I would like to receive your comment about how TPP impact on VietNam with Trump. Mrs. Helena Worthen sai that: " In the meantime, “congratulations” on a new president is not exactly right….”condolences” is better.  How will this affect TPP? We don’t know yet. Trump campaigned on the basis of being anti-TPP, but he tells lies all the time and changes his mind whenever the wind blows from a different direction. TPP is good for big business  in the US — it is good for corporations. It is good for corporations because it encourages work to get sent out to low-wage countries, but more important is the way it allows corporations to sue governments to recover “lost profits.”  Seriously, this means that if...

The first time in Viet Nam, over 1000 employees striked to establish local union at factory. On 11/4/2016, at Bluecom Vina company(Korean Company with over 1.400 employees) in Hai Phong province, The employees striked because the company did not establish union to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the employees. Some reasons lead to wildcat strike : The employees had to work overtime to much, from 8.00 am to 22.00 pm without having good conditions at work. The employees wanted to have more days off: 2 days on saturday, to increase the number of day off from 4 days to 6 days a month. The solutions of the company : On 11/4 evening, the company had established local union. The company would supported vehicle deposit about 450.000 dong a month but they would cut down diligence money from 200.000 VNdong to 100.000 VNdong. The company did not agree with increasing more 2 days off. Up to now, the employees still stop working. Source: vnexpress.net ---------...

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...

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

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

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