Trade Unions’ role in national development encouraged

Trade Unions need to pay more attention to building and developing the working class into the vanguard force capable of driving Vietnam forward in the new era.

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong assigned this task to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) at the opening ceremony of the 11th National Trade Union Congress in Hanoi on July 28.

He said the ongoing process of Doi Moi (Renewal) as well as national industrialisation and modernisation requires the working class to not only grow in both quantity and quality but also improve their professional skills and upgrade knowledge to undertake national key tasks.

The working class should be well aware of their important political role and position to become the mainstay of the nation, said Trong.

In the socialist-oriented market economy, he said Trade Unions need to better perform their role as responsible representatives to protect workers’ legitimate rights and interest, oversee implementation of collective bargaining agreements, and deal with labour disputes reasonably.

He asked Trade Unions to become deeply involved in the current process of business restructuring to create a healthy and transparent business environment.

Trong said it is necessary to regularly practise democratic regulations at the grassroots level to promote workers’ mastery rights, launch appropriate exemplary role model movements to boost production, and generate more jobs and incomes for workers.

He asked the VGCL to diversify the mass mobilisation work to gather more workers in all economic sectors, while renewing operations of its Trade Unions, especially those at the grassroots-level.

According to the Party General Secretary, Trade Unions should be established in the private, joint venture and foreign direct investment sectors, to provide reliable support for workers, especially in protecting their rights and interests.

He also underlined the need to develop the Party building work in Trade Unions to help strengthen the working class in the new era.

In his report VGCL President Dang Ngoc Tung noted that during the past five years Trade Unions at all levels have played an active role in formulating the 2012 Trade Union Law and the revised 2012 Labour Code, with more amendments concerning worker employment, wages, housing, and insurance.

Trade Unions have worked closely with businesses to ease difficulties in production, take care of laid off workers, and build harmonious labour relations in the workplace.

Many exemplary role model movements have been launched to stimulate workers’ creativity in production, which helped increase productivity and product quality and save the nation thousands of billions of Vietnam Dong.  

Vietnam now has approximately 8 million Trade Union members working in all economic sectors.