VietNamNet Bridge - Some Vietnamese workers are really angry that all they got from going to Russia to work was beatings and harassment.

Vihacoop’s representatives meet with 39 workers at the head office of the Department of Overseas Labor Affairs.

At times when they have been frustrated beyond endurance by the inability of local authorities to satisfy a grievance, groups of rural people will often decide to take their complaint in person to higher authorities. 

Thus for several days up to August 27, thirty-nine former ‘export laborers’ from Thai Nguyen province have staged a sit-in strike at entrance of the Department of Overseas Labor Affairs, a unit of the Ministry of Labor, Social Welfare and War Invalids in Hanoi.

The workers had agreed, more than a year earlier, to work in a factory in the Russian city of Ivanteevka.  The contract agreed between them and the ELIT-TRIED Company and countersigned by Ms Nguyen Thi Vinh, the head of VIHACOOP, the Commerce and Labor Export JSC, a state-run company, specified three years of employment with pay of 48 to 50 million dong per person per year, after deduction of living costs.

When they reached Russia in May 2008, the 39 workers, part of a group of sixty, were taken to a garment factory to work under a Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy. 

According to the workers’ complaint, they received no pay for their first month’s work – supposedly this was a ‘trial’ month.  In the second and third month, their wages were docked, supposedly to cover the fees due to ELIT-TRIED for introducing them.  After the third month,  the Russian company told the workers that it had no more work for them.

Consequently, for nearly a year in Russia, the group of workers had nothing to do but prepare their meals and wander about.  During that time, the Russian company required them to sign a bill every month for their housing, foodstuffs and other expense.  Without jobs, though they many times asked for help finding work, the workers at last phoned VIHACOOP and their families, asking to be brought back home.

Their status in Russia was irregular, they had to live surreptitiously and were often chased by the police.  Ngo Thi Khai remembers that “every day, we were in such fear of the police that it was hard to get a full meal.  Sometimes we’d hide on the roof of of a tall building, sometimes we’d hide in a garden to keep out of the way of the cops.  We were often picked up and held at the police station for many hours at a time.”

Nguyen Thi Thuy recalls that “on November 11, my girlfriend Thuyet and I were chased out of the factory by the boss, and after that, four Russians came and beat us two.  The other women were locked up in a room, unable to to come to our aid.  That afternoon, five cops came and forced all sixty of us into a sixteen square meter room.  The men had to lie on the floor with their hands up, and suffer a beating,” Thuy said.  “Seeing this horrible sight, some of the girls were so agitated that they fainted.” 

 The cause of this terrible period was that the 39 workers had been sent to Russia by VINAHACOOP with visas valid for only three months.  After July 10, 2008, their visas had expired and there was no one who would help them renew the permits – thus they had to live in a twilight status.

It’s been three months since the workers at last returned to Vietnam, but they still haven’t gotten anything due them under their contracts.  One of them, Hoang Thi Thao, said, with agitation clear in her voice, “we’ve contacted the company [ELIT-TRIED] over and over, even going to their office here in Hanoi.  The higher-ups there ignore us.  At last, we have no recourse but to bring our grievance to the Contract Labor Management Department.”

VietNamNet reporters learned that in December 2008, the Labor Department office in Thai Nguyen  met with VIHACOOP and instructed the company that it needed either to have a valid agreement with the Russian company or bring the workers home.  If the latter, VIHACOOP was obliged to pay the travel expenses of the workers and to liquidate their contracts according to law.

In April 2009, the Thai Nguyen office of the Labor Department tried again, proposing that VIHACOOP negotiate a compromise solution.  Again the company ignored them.

Seeing no alternative, the 39 workers and some relatives decided to begin a sit-down strike at the Hanoi office of the Export Labor Departent. 

After four days, VIHACOOP met with the Department of Overseas Labor Affairs to propose that it give each worker a gratuity of $500 (about nine million dong).  The workers rejected the offer as far too little, and insisted that the amount of compensation should reflect the fact that it was VIHACOOP that was in the wrong.  

PV