The Regional Coordination of Strikes and the Challenge for Union Reform in Vietnam

Since the launch of the economic reform (Doi Moi) policy in the early 1990s, the union system of Vietnam has seen little change: the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) retains its monopoly, its political affiliation to and reliance on the Communist Party, while at the workplace, the VGCL-affiliated enterprise unions are too dependent on the management to represent workers' rights and interests. 'Collective bargaining by riots' has become the only way for rank-and-file workers to improve their working conditions. This article draws on more than a decade of research to show that informal organization of workers in some companies has grown to such an extent that the de facto leaders initiate bargaining with the employers and, when negotiations fail, they organize strikes. These strikes are usually settled in favour of the workers, causing a change in wage levels and leading to spontaneous 'copycat' strikes in neighbouring companies. This informal coordination of strikes across workplaces not only aims at achieving economic goals such as wage rises but has recently been used to express workers' discontent with government policy. The nature of the strike waves has shifted gradually from economic to political; together with external pressure, this has pushed the top leadership of Vietnam to initiate serious trade union reform.