National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has been struggling to keep its staff members from going to rival companies which are willing to offer them much higher salaries.
Recently, many technicians who worked for Vietnam Airlines Engineering Company (VAECO) have been forced to sign a 20-year labour contract with the company.
The procedure was aimed at preventing employees from moving to other companies with a salary as much as three times higher. For instance, at present, VAECO is paying from VND7.5-21 million (USD357.2-1,000) per month each employee, some private airlines offer VND21-58 million (USD1,000-2,761), depending on capacity, besides many other preferential policies.
In fact, a number of key employees and Certificate of Release to Service (CRS) holders at VAECO, mostly in HCM City, have moved to local private carrier VietJetAir.
The management board of VAECO quickly issued a regulations which requested all of the staff members to sign labour contracts valid for 10-20 years. If anyone who breaks the contract would be subject to large fines. The fees for an employees ranges from VND700 million (USD33,333) to more than VND1.4 billion (USD66,600).
Many employees opposed the regulation, saying that the high fees did not fit the training quality.
Many employees complained about low salaries and inequality between them and foreign experts, who get much higher. On November 20 afternoon, VAECO leaders held a meeting to deal with the problem, however, the situation has not yet been resolved.
Meanwhile, an official from VietJetAir, which is said to have lured VAECO’s personnel, said, they did not try to attract labourers from other companies and just recruited staffs based on their real capacity in a voluntary way. The income between Vietnamese and foreign staff is equal.
VietJetAir has been trying to develop, so is in need of employees, including technicians. The carrier will receive hundreds of airplanes from Airbus in the next coming year.
A number of Vietnam Airlines staff members, such as pilots and flight attendants, have moved to new airlines such as Pacific Airlines or Air Mekong .
