Job Discussion Forums

[CThomas]

[CThomas]

[CThomas]

[deadlift]

[CThomas]

[CThomas]

[CThomas]

To everyone: I know full well "how things are in Vietnam."

But what I've heard so far is a bunch of generalizations. I haven't heard any talk of specifics about the contract nor any research on the company in question.

Take a good look at the organization in question and their management's composition:

http://www.ucsivietnam.com/index.php/en-GB/about

If specific breaches were identified, they could be dealt with.

Again, I've heard a bunch of cynical generalizations but absolutely nothing productive, save to "roll over." And I haven't heard any specifics at all from the OP regarding the contract. My original point began with "what does your contract say?" My point was to start from there. But I'm gathering from people's responses that even this question is not worth asking.

I'm not sure where the delusion lies here, and what is laughable, but I do know that, in my experience (with contract disputes), labor laws here stick if you know what you're talking about.

[deadlift]

[CThomas]

[spycatcher reincarnated]

In general it is very difficult to get reasonable compensation for breech of contract in Vietnam. If you win a case the judge will usually decide compensation is dependant upon work completed and doesn�t usually take much notice of the contracted obligations.

If you are awarded compensation then it can still be very difficult to collect if the party who lost the case doesn�t want to pay up.

It should be noted that it is often the government that breaks contracts, so they don�t have much interest in changing the above in any hurry.

Labor/employment contracts are another story, however. I believe the labour laws were created/seriously enhanced around the time of Doi Moi (1986), and the reason for doing this was to prevent foreign capitalist investors from taking advantage of the poor working class Vietnamese citizens. Vietnamese labor laws are often considered to be the most employee friendly in the region.

It has been suggested numerous times by many different organizations (Eurocham, KPMG, etc�) that the labor laws need totally rewriting as they are too employee friendly and not written with white collar workers in mind. However, the government seems adamant that it is not going to make significant changes and just occasionally makes tweaks and waits to receive feedback to decided whether to actually implement these tweaks or not.

Apart from a few issues, nearly everything in the labor law officially applies to foreigners and Vietnamese and in reality nearly all of them do as well.

I think the employee success rate in court cases for employees against their employers is over 90% in favor of employees. Up until recently it was just foreign companies that were being sued for labor violations, but more recently Vietnamese companies are also being sued. Think it must be over 10 years ago that the first foreign individual won a labor dispute in court against their employer. Interestingly enough this was against a foreign owned education company.

Note that the vast majority of cases don�t get to court as it is nearly always pointed ou, during the arbitration process, to the employer that they have violated the labor law and they agree to settle out of court. However, it should also be noted that even though they may agree to settle out of court it doesn�t mean that they necessary cough up in any hurry or at all.

To legally terminate an employee�s contract is usually quite difficult to do, without some compensation, so companies usually agree compensation and get the employee to resign or they either knowingly or unknowingly break the law. IE how many companies have a union member present in meetings with an employee, whilst they are going through the disciplinary procedures? It should also be noted that some of the companies do really know their stuff these days and are very labor law compliant, but not many.


The reality is that in labor disputes, employees nearly always win because employers have nearly always not followed the labor laws to the letter. This can be a long drawn out process, however, and because you win it doesn�t necessarily mean it will be worth the effort and you will actually be compensated.

On this issue I wouldn�t take too much notice of people that say they know what happens because they have been here a long time. Often these people can give many examples of what has happened and not necessarily what is happening now. Often they know less than newbees about the present situation.

As the Chinese saying goes, �The law of the emperor stops at the gates to our city� so no idea how anything works or doesn�t work in Da Nang.

Without more info my gut feeling, despite what I have written above, is that the OP should just walk away from their Da Nang employer and put it down to experience. If this were in HCMC my opinion would probably be different.

[LettersAthruZ]

[generalgiap]

[CThomas]

[quote="generalgiap"]

[spycatcher reincarnated]

General Giap

[generalgiap]