Phong Phu workers protest unreasonable working conditions

January 21, 2015 | 11:06

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On January 19, 600 workers of the Phong Phu Nha Trang garment factory in the central province of Khanh Hoa, one of the factories belonging to Vietnam’s biggest garment producer and exporter Phong Phu Corp., gathered to ask leaders of the company to negotiate on the unreasonable new rules the employer planned to enforce, according to laodong.com.vn.

Photo source: laodong.com.vn

The workers had been informed of the eradication of the VND200,000 ($9.4) monthly transportation allowance, to be replaced by the requirement that 100 per cent of workers travel using the company’s bus system. Phong Phu would also cut 70 per cent of a worker’s attendance bonus if he/she takes one day off no matter what the reason is, as well as cut break time.

Workers were enraged by the new rules. “The bus routes are inconvenient. The bus passes some locations on the way to the factory but does not do so on the way back from it. We are only allowed one leave day per month, now if we take it we get a 70 per cent cut in attendance bonus. Wage is at most VND4 million ($188) a month. We can’t go on like this,” one of the workers said.

In 2014, the company already enforced unreasonable policies such as continuous overtime not paid according to the law but instead paid by breaks and an unreasonably high quota among others.

A group of officials from the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the Confederation of Labour of Khanh Hoa province, joined to facilitate the negotiation between the employees and the employer. They asked the management to reconsider the quota and overtime pay and resolve other disputes with the workers.

At the end of the negotiation, Nguyen Tien Ha, acting director of the factory agreed to abolish the 70 per cent attendance bonus cut and to redesign the bus routes as well as maintain transport allowance in some cases. The management said they would still pay workers for January 19 and asked the workers to go back to work on January 20.

Phong Phu Corporation (OTC: PPH) is one of Vietnam’s biggest producers and exporters of garment. The company, which has the chartered capital of about VND700 billion ($33 million), is 51 per cent owned by the state-run Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex). It earned the consolidated net profit of VND193 billion ($9 million) in the first nine months of 2014, down 21 per cent on year, on the revenue of VND2.9 trillion ($136 million), down 9.4 per cent on year.