Accompanying Workers in difficult times

​Lawyer Vu Ngoc Ha, Director of Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center assists employees with legal procedures to protect their legal rights.

In order to provide timely support to employees, the Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center has many solutions to access, legal advice, legal aid, and protect legal rights and interests of employees. In addition to direct consultation at the office, the center also provides telephone advice, Zalo and mobile legal advice.

Accompanying with Employees

Lawyer Vu Ngoc Ha, Director of Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center, most of the labor disputes emerging in 2020 are mainly related to salary regime; benefits after work stoppage, resignation, termination of labor contract; Social insurance policy, health insurance, etc. Many of such cases have received legal assistance from the center’s attorneys and won the cases.

For example, the case of Ms. H.T.A., an employee of company H.V. (located in the area of Long Binh Tan Ward, Bien Hoa City) and 41 other workers were not paid during suspension and social insurance as prescribed due to impact of COVID-19. After asking the Center for legal assistance in the process of suing such company, Ms. H.T.A. was compensated more than VND 9 million by H.V Company, 41 of her colleagues were compensated nearly VND 300 million. This company also paid full social insurance for all 42 people during the months of work stoppage.

Regarding this case, lawyer Vu Ngoc Ha added that at first, the first instance court ruled that it did not accept the petition of 42 employees. The Center found that the first instance court declared so incorrect, so it continued to support the employee to appeal to the appellate level. As a result, the appellate level declared that the employee won the lawsuit and the company had to pay the termination fee and pay social insurance for 42 employees in the months of full suspension.

In 2020, the Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center also supported many collective labor disputes at N.A. Company (Amata IP, Bien Hoa City), E.D. (Bien Hoa 2 IP); S.L. Company (Song May IP, Trang Bom district), etc.  Initially, the center successfully defended 5 Trade Union officers whose labor contracts were terminated illegally by S.L Company, and other cases are continuing to support.

In particular, in July 2020, the UK employee’s success protection center (42 yrs old, President of Trade Union of K.D Company, Amata IP) was illegally terminated by this Company. Since then, the court forced K.D to pay UK employees more than VND 216 million for the days they cannot work, 2 months’ salary due to unilateral termination of labor contract and full payment of social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance.

“Lawyers and consultants at the Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center are those who have a lot of experience in consulting, supporting and protecting employees. Especially, the lawyers and consultants always follow the procedure progress to come up with a reasonable, correct, results protection plan, so we are very reassuring.”- a UK Employee (Bien City Hoa) expressed.

Several forms of support

According to Provincial Labor Union’s Legal Support Center, in 2020, the Center has provided legal advice to workers and employees with nearly 33,000 turns of people such as: direct consultation with 1.6 thousand turns; Indirect consulting via telephone, Zalo, Facebook with over 16 thousand turns; itinerant consulting 14 meetings with 742 participants, etc. In particular, in the first months of 2020, every day, the Center received over 100 inquiries via telephone, Zalo, Facebook due to its inability to come directly due to impact of COVID-19.

In 2021, the Center will continue to promote legal counseling through the above indirect channels so that employees can be consulted promptly, without wasting their time.

Lawyer Vu Ngoc Ha recounted: “During difficult times due to COVID-19, 2 desk phones and 7 cell phones of counselors, lawyers kept ringing, everyone had to work hard with the desire to quickly and promptly time to relieve employees of problems and frustrations in order to help stabilize their psychology, thoughts and jobs. Because many people have the same question, we selected and answered them on newspapers, radio, website of Provincial Labor Confederation, Zalo, Facebook for many employees to easily follow and grasp”.

“In addition to increasing counseling on the issues that employees are asking about so that they know how to protect their interests, collectively, we also stand side by side with employees in suing for benefits when being benefited by the business owner using the epidemic situation to fire, force layoff, fail to pay salaries and bonuses to employees in accordance with the law” - Lawyer Ha confided.

Nhan Thai