Vietnam & Labour Relations
The communist country where workers strike anyway — and sometimes win
Vietnam shares with China the paradox of a communist state with a single party-controlled union and a workforce that has nonetheless demonstrated a remarkable willingness to strike. Vietnam’s integration into global supply chains — making it a major producer of textiles, electronics, and footwear — has created a large factory workforce whose labour conditions are scrutinized globally. The Vietnamese government has responded to labour pressure with a combination of minimum wage increases and cautious legal reform, while maintaining the Communist Party’s monopoly on union organization.
10 Things That Stand Out About Labour Relations in Vietnam
- The Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) is the only legally recognized union body in Vietnam, operating under the guidance of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Like the ACFTU in China, it is constitutionally positioned as a mass organization of the party rather than an independent representative of worker interests.
- Despite the constraints of the official union system, Vietnam has experienced thousands of wildcat strikes — spontaneous work stoppages organized outside the VGCL — since the 2000s. These strikes, concentrated in foreign-owned factories in industrial zones, have been the primary mechanism through which Vietnamese workers have secured wage improvements.
- One of the most significant figures in Vietnamese labour history is Nguyen Thi Thu, who emerged as an informal leader of wildcat strike actions in Ho Chi Minh City garment factories in the early 2000s. Workers like Thu — organizing without union authorization, using mobile phones and workplace networks — demonstrated the capacity for genuine collective action within a system designed to prevent it.
- Vietnam’s Labour Code, most recently revised in 2019, theoretically permits strikes but requires extensive prior procedures — conciliation, arbitration — that make legal strikes virtually impossible. Wildcat strikes are technically illegal but have generally not been prosecuted, with the government preferring wage increases and mediation over criminalization.
- Vietnam’s minimum wage, set by the National Wage Council (a tripartite body including VGCL representatives, employer associations, and government), has been raised substantially in recent years, partly in response to the frequency of wildcat strikes. The minimum wage is set regionally, with higher rates in urban and industrial areas.
- The 2019 Labour Code included a provision permitting ’employee representative organizations at enterprise level’ that are not part of the VGCL — a significant concession driven partly by CPTPP trade agreement labour commitments. Implementation has been cautious and the independent organizations that have formed remain in an ambiguous legal position.
- Vietnam’s integration into global value chains through trade agreements including CPTPP and EVFTA has created external pressure for labour rights improvements. Both agreements include labour chapters requiring conformity with ILO core standards, and their implementation is monitored by trade partners with more leverage than general ILO supervision.
- The electronics sector — dominated by Samsung, LG, and Intel facilities — employs hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese workers and has been the site of significant labour organizing activity. Conditions in these plants are a subject of ongoing scrutiny by labor rights organizations and multinational brand customers.
- Vietnam’s garment and footwear sector, supplying major global brands, has been the heartland of wildcat strike activity and the focus of international labour standards campaigns. Brands’ codes of conduct and audit requirements have created a parallel accountability system that supplements (and often outperforms) official labour regulation.
- The post-COVID recovery and Vietnam’s continued rapid economic growth have created tight labour markets in industrial zones, giving workers more informal bargaining power. The combination of market forces, minimum wage increases, and the persistent willingness of Vietnamese workers to strike has raised wages substantially in the manufacturing sector, even without genuine collective bargaining.
