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Vietnam, one of the fastest growing countries in the world has joined WTO in November 2006 and has continued to grow economically. Fueled by foreign investments, the opening of the market economy has meant that there are greater opportunities for economical development, increased in job opportunities and hopefully better integration within the global economy.



However, the opening of the market economy has brought about a mixed blessing. While there are better business opportunities for those with capital and business acumen, the general workers and their trade unions are faced with an ever changing landscape of modernization, liberalizations and the need to compete in an open market economy.



UNI Apro and their partners, UNI LCJ, LO TCO Sweden hold a three days symposium; “Forging Partnership: Towards Building Harmonious Industrial Relations”. The three days symposium held from 23-24th September 2008 in Ho Chi Minh City on the following three sub-themes;



Building Harmonious Industrial Relations



This session looked at how the trade unions can build harmonious Industrial Relations via the grievance handling structured procedures, good industrial practices, better enforcement of labour laws, collective bargaining agreements and others. The participants also look at case studies of how the trade unions respond to the organizing and recruitment of members in a multinational company.



Creation of better working environment



Exchange of information on the initiative of other countries to see what type of incentives has been provided to improve the working environment of the workers, which includes the gender prospective and the fact that there are now new types of atypical work that had been introduced but may not be addressed by all trade unions and the country.



Sustainable growth



In a corporate world that is engross with production and profitability, should workers be concern about the issue as well? After all the issue of productivity and profitability determines whether the workers will still have a job at the end of the day. There is also the fresh challenge of the recent increase in the fuel prices, escalating cost of living and higher inflation rate that has eroded the workers living standards. “What is the union’s response?” set the discussions in this session.



The speakers did a great job in engaging the interest of the participants with varies examples and models used in the trade unions to engage in the work with the workers, employers and like minded organizations. The issue of gender integration, decent work, organizing of the multi-national companies, collective bargaining and the industrial relations of the non-Vietnamese owned companies were discussed actively.



The information received from the speakers will be used to build better industrial relations between the employer and employee. It is also hoped that further assistance on the trade union development will continued as the workers in Vietnam would like to be global players as well in the very near future.



UNI Apro together with LO TCO Sweden and UNI LCJapan has sponsored the Joint Sectoral Seminar in Vietnam for a number of years to share their experiences in the UNI family with our colleagues in Vietnam to strengthen the trade union movement in this country. This year, the Vietnam Joint Sector seminar will be held in Ho Chi Minh City and organized by Vietnam National Union of Post and Telecom Workers (VNUPTW) with Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL).



The local trade unions that participated were trade unions forming the UNI service sectors which includes our National Partners from Vietnam National Union of Bank Workers, Vietnam National Union of Industrial and Trade Workers, Vietnam National Union of Post and Telecom Workers, the participants from the “golden triangles of EPZs” namely from, Ho Chi Minh, Binh Duong and Dong Nai with nearly 60 registered participants.



The event was a success with calls for such dialogs to be held more often in varies parts of Vietnam.



The UNI Apro, LO TCO Sweden and UNI LCJ team comprises of:-



-Mr. Christopher Ng, Regional Secretary UNI Apro, Ms. Kanako Osaki, Embassy of Japan in China, Ms. Marie Kihlberg Nelving, UNIONEN, Sweden, Ms. Maria Nyberg, Union of Commercial Employees,Sweden, Mr. Kjell Karlsson Kihlberg, Fastighetsanstalldas forbund, Sweden, Mr. Ishikawa Koji, Head of UNI LCJapan Delegation, Mr. Yoichi Tobita, JSD, Mr. Toshiro Uemura, UI ZENSEN, Mr. Koji Ishikawa, FNIU, Mr. Katsuhiko Suzuki, NWJ, Mr. Kenji Hirano, JPGU, Mr. Masahide Goto, FNIU, Ms. Yoko Ogawa, UNI Apro and Ms. Alice Chang, UNI Apro

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