Strike hits textile plants
04/01/2008
Around 2,000 workers at a textile factory in Ho Chi Minh City have gone on strike over pay. It is the latest in a series of walk-outs to have hit the manufacturing sector in Vietnam this week.
Workers are protesting that a new basic monthly salary of around $67 is too little to keep pace with rising consumer prices in the country.
The government approved a rise in the basic national minimum wage on January 1, with employees of foreign-owned firms guaranteed at least $53 a month. Most overseas employers—the textile factory at the centre of this latest dispute is Taiwanese-owned—have offered more, but even this has failed to prevent industrial action.
Consumer prices increased by 12% last month compared to December 2006 and workers' representatives expect further inflation in the run-up to the traditional Vietnamese New Year celebrations in six weeks' time.
Strike action earlier in the week appears to have worked. For example, Agence France Presse said a walk-out by 1,500 textile workers at a plant owned by Korean manufacturer Sh Vina had been successful in earning them a monthly wage offer of $93. They returned to work today.
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