HANOI (ILO News) – A nation-wide network of industrial zone unions has been officially set up by the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) to promote union activities and enhance their representative roles for workers in key areas of industrial relations.

The network includes 50 trade unions of industrial zones, processing zones and economic zones (IZ) in 48 cities and provinces across the country.

The IZ Trade Unions Network is being piloted on the national scope by the growing roles and importance of IZ unions in the system of the Viet Nam’s Trade Union, meaning no sectoral or industrial linkages. The network is a ‘soft’ mechanism, operating on a voluntary basis, to share and support each another in performing trade union functions and tasks.

The promotion a unified IZ union network throughout Viet Nam was an initiative under the cooperation framework between VGCL and the Japanese Government-funded component of the ILO’s New Industrial Relations Framework programme (NIRF/Japan).

IZ trade union is a special institution within the organizational structure of the Viet Nam’s Trade Union. It was first piloted in 1997 in response to an emerging need to organize and represent workers in IZs at that time. The formation of trade unions at the IZ level initially took place in HCM City, Dong Nai and Can Tho.

In 2003, with various major lessons and successes achieved from the pilot of these three localities, IZ trade unions were for the first time included in VGCL’s Constitution and became an integral part of the organization. They serve as an intermediate-upper level union which is intensively grassroots-oriented and focuses on collective bargaining, dialogues, and representing the rights and interests of workers.

Even though each IZ trade union gained big successes, the dissemination and replication of these lessons did not receive adequate attention, without no official forum for IZ union officers to share information. Therefore, these practitioners from the various IZs connected informally to learn from each other.

From the effective operation of this informal cooperation model, VGCL realized that the formalization and establishment of a single network nation-wide would enhance the exchange of information among IZ union officers, helping them better respond to new contexts and come up with new trade union solutions to address the challenges of globalization and the fourth Industrial Revolutions, to better protect the rights and interests of union members and workers.

“VGCL defines the IZs trade union as strategic areas of trade union organizations. In the past, union officers of different IZ trade unions gathered together informally to exchange and share experiences about representing legitimate interests of workers. The official establishment of IZ Trade Unions Network will certainly be a breakthrough in implementing the functions and duties of IZ trade unions in the whole country,” said VGCL Vice President Mai Duc Chinh.

On 22 June 2018, the Presidium of the VGCL issued Decision No 1151/QD-TLD on piloting the establishment of the IZ Trade Unions Network, together with temporary regulations for the organization and operation of this network.