By NK, Hanoi
January 21, 2001
When the new lunar year is approaching (Tet holidays), the media in Vietnam always have a habit of looking backwards to the previous year and looking forwards to the perspectives for the new year. The propaganda machines are now talking much of the year 2000 by reviewing the great achievements and the great events in Vietnam. The year of "economic recovery"; "We have put an end to economic downturn," "Vietnam has gained its momentum again," "Take a look at these percentages, and these indices! See! They're rising! They're stable too!" "We are firmly moving towards the new century, the new millennium under the banner of national independence and socialism!" etc. The ruling and parasitic elite has repetitively quoted the dated phrases of Ho Chi Minh, "this spring is indeed much better than the previous ones," which it thought could be perfectly applied to describe the new year. The year that Clinton was the first US president to visit Vietnam. Such a "historical" landmark! No, it's a new imperialist invasion.
But what about workers? Or "working class" - the term that no longer has its place in Vietnamese "revolutionary" presses (they often refer to themselves as "revolutionary presses"). What have thousands of sweated workers got? The waves of strikes at sweatshops throughout the country which is still going on tells us much.
Strike for Tet bonuses?
Looking at the series of reports on the recent strikes, many may think that the reason for these strikes is solely the Tet bonuses that the bosses fail to pay the workers on time. It's clear that workers do need money to spend on Tet holidays. However, this is absolutely not the sole reason. They go on strike because the repression has reached its limits. They can endure no more suffering. They go on strike as the only way to resist against the worsening working conditions, the madly forced overtime, starvation wages, abuses at working places, brutal exploitation, horrible crimes of the bosses, severe vengeance against workers, and crazy sacking.
The latest strike is the one at Quoc Bao in Da Nang where workers regularly faint right on the production lines. At this company, every day 4 or 5 workers faint. And workers consider these phenomena as normal things, not as horrible things. "That is normal here. In the summer, there are even more faint workers!" workers say indignantly. And they are cured by embrocation rubbing! Each shift, they toil at least 14 hours (one shift is from 7 am to 9 pm, the other shift is from 9 pm to 7 am the next morning), and get 1,000 VND or 0.07 US dollars an hour!
Forced overtime
There is a tendency of increasing working hours, increasing extra shifts and not paying workers' wages for months. In "socialist" Vietnam, most of the sweated workers at Tan A company work 16 hours a day for starvation pay. Here for profit capitalists are sucking the workers dry.
Sweated workers at Hai Ha Shoes factory are treated as slaves. They work all week.
"Though many workers exhaust and faint, the bosses did not allow them to go back home to take rest but forced them to stay at the factory to work at night. Workers must toil till 10 pm, there are hardly any holidays, not even Sundays. As a result, workers even do not have enough time to recreate their labour power. For each hour of extra-shift the factory pays them only 1,500 VND. Workers are paid monthly only 320,000 VND. Workers who toil in the whole Sundays are paid only 12,000 VND. More brutally, they have no medical insurance. But those who ask for pills more than five times will be fired!
"Workers cannot live on their wages. Moreover, they are always repressed by the inhumane treatment of the factory. Many of them were faint beside the machines, but they were forced to get back to work right after they got conscious again." Lao dong (January 15, 2001)
As in Hue Phong Shoes factory previously, the bosses at Ha Long Silk Company limit times for workers to use toilets while they are on shift. Is it new or surprising that capitalists are going to force workers to toil till their bladders burst? Workers are now in an utter plight.
Cuts and sacks
In these sweatshops, the bosses are looking for every ruthless measure to cut workers' wages by which workers could not live. They are even robbed and duped humiliatingly as in the dispute at Reeyoung company.
"Workers who cannot go to the factory due to family business reasons (funerals and the like) must find people who can replace them during their absence, otherwise 20,000 VND will be subtracted from their wages daily. The electricity goes out, production cannot be carried out, but the company subtracts each worker's wage 3,000 VND an hour! Going to the toilet while on a shift also means another cut!" Lao dong's report about Ha Long Silk company.
The bosses raise and clench their fists in front of the face of workers who go on strike or complain. These workers will soon be sacked with a reason that makes everyone laugh loud.
On January 17, over thirteen workers at Mandrin Company located in Le Minh Xuan Industry Zone in Ho Chi Minh City went on strike, they were forced out of the factory and immediately fired. Here those who have any complaining will be fired. You ask for your interests? You're fired. You do not go to the factory, your wage is cut and I don't care for your reasons. You're so ill and want to have a day off, so your wage is cut. You are injured in an accident at the workplace, buy the medical and cure yourself by your money.
Women, best for shoes and clothing industry
Most of workers at the sweatshops and Export Processing Zones are women. Many of them are migrant workers from rural areas where they cannot see their dirty cheap piles of rice falling off to ground. They have to rush to the sweatshops to sell out the only thing they have - their labour power.
Women are not only very skilful at manual labour in textile, garment, shoes and so on but also they are very easily exploited, abused and bullied without violent complaining and protesting. As in Quoc Bao company, the bosses are fond of employing poor young women from villages who fear everyday of losing their jobs. Whereas male workers are always more difficult to be ruled over. And bosses at Quoc Bao fear that they will someday be beaten or attacked by these men.
However, large numbers of women who join the strikes at Hue Phong and Hai Ha and many other sweatshops in the coming period proves the bosses' calculation totally wrong. There's no sex discrimination in strikes. When people are in a blind alley, they, regardless of men or women, all struggle for a way out.
Workers! Buy more shares now!
And to speed up this process of "equitisation", it is necessary to open a Vietnamese stock exchange. Vietnam must have its own index. So they already opened one casino in Ho Chi Minh City last year and its index is VN-index. And a new one in Hanoi is being prepared ready to work in this year.
Then what are workers at the equitised enterprises told? In the process of "equitisation", workers at the equitised enterprises are encouraged to buy more shares and get rich from owning shares.
"Equitisation is to diversify the capital sources from selling shares, it also helps the labourers perform their controlling rights by their shares…Labourers not only have controlling rights indirectly from a state which is already of the people and for the people but also now they have controlling rights directly from their shares…The labourers are no longer hired workers because they also have shares.[SIC!]" ("Equitisation and labourers' interest issues", from Economic Study, no. 236, January 1998)
There is a common argument that after buying shares or becoming a shareholder of the enterprises they will take more responsiblity and work more efficiently since they get tied tighter to the factory and get the benefits according to the value of the shares.
Workers! Isn't that the genius ideal of "socialist" Vietnam?
Follow China?
33 years ago, the Tet Offensive cost thousands of lives, and now a new "Tet Offensive" is causing thousands of workers to become discontent and disbelieve. The generations of workers who had fallen to drive out the imperialists and capitalists, did not do so to build up such a distorted society like "socialist" Vietnam today. This "Tet Offensive" also sternly warns against the young camp inside the "Communist" Party that is putting its hope on China's road which means a counter-revolution restoring capitalism under the cloak of "socialism" or "communism". This will deepen all the chaos and striking contradictions of Vietnam to new levels. Society has begun to plunge into a malaise and a profound crisis of all scales.
But now, workers throughout Vietnam begin to realise what is really going on in "socialist" Vietnam. They will know why the genuine Marxists always enclose the socialist word between the quotes when they refer to "socialist" Vietnam. They will one day unmask the stinking hypocrisy of the ruling elite, all the dirty political games among the camps in the Party, and the clashes inside it. However, workers will still continue to experience even more painful lessons that will help them gain the consciousness to organise themselves in the new struggle against these Stalinists who are still screaming out that they serve for socialism.
"The Communist Party has become the instrument for the re-establishment of capitalist and imperialist interests. However, the Vietnamese with their tremendous history of struggle and a very high literacy rate can overcome these obstacles and return to the fight against capitalism and to the genuine ideas of socialism." (Keith Dickinson)