Housing rent support provided to share difficulties with employees

Knowing about the difficult situation of many workers due to the stagnant production of enterprises recently, some lodging house’s owners do not hesitate to reduce housing rent and present daily necessities to workers.

In recent days, departments and localities in the province have actively encourage lodging house’s owners to continue reducing rents. Taking the lead in doing this are officials and members of Veterans Association, Women's Union, Youth Union, Red Cross in communes, wards and townships.

Truong Quang Hien (left end), and Tran Dinh Tu, a member of Veterans Association of An Dien commune (Ben Cat town), visit workers, and encourage members to reduce housing rent for workers.

Reduce the burden of workers

In the early days of December 2022, when they heard that some businesses let their workers take early Tet holidays, Dau Thi Hanh and her husband, the owners of a 50-room lodging house in Tan Lap hamlet of An Dien commune, Ben Cat town, immediately reduced 200,000 VND/room for each tenant in their house.

During the workers' Tet holiday, Hanh will consider each situation to support more housing rent. She also prepared 50 Tet gifts for each lodging room, each gift included 10kg of rice and necessities, worth about 400,000 VND/piece.

“Every year, my family always gives Tet gifts to workers. This year, knowing that workers are facing difficulties, suffering reduced income, I decreased the rent more in the last months of the year, hoping that I could somewhat relieve the burden of tenants", said Hanh.

Receiving meaningful gifts, Doan Van Tien and his wife, born in Bac Lieu province and are staying in Hanh’s lodging house, could not hide their joy.

Tien is working at SingWan Textile Company (Bau Bang District), his wife is a worker at Quoc Tet Garment Company (Ben Cat Town). In recent months, he and his wife have only lived on a basic salary and struggled to pay rent and buy food for the whole family.

“Prior to this, we worked overtime regularly, my wife and I could earn 7-8 million VND/person/month. Now, our income has decreased deeply, my family has to spend very sparingly to cover basic expenses. The lodging house’s owner cares much about our lives, this partly helps us to reduce difficulties and stick with the job”, said Doan Van Tien.

At the lodging house of Tran Dinh Tu in Kien Dien hamlet (An Dien commune, Ben Cat town), there are more than 10 families as tenants also could not hide their joy as Tu announced a rent reduction of 300,000 VND/room.

Bui Thanh Quyen, born in Dak Lak province, a worker of Yu Quang Company (Ben Cat Town) shared: “My monthly income was VND10 million. But in recent months, I has only worked 5 days a week, no overtime, so I only receive a basic salary of 5 million VND/month. For the past 10 days, due to no work, I had to stay at home. I am planning to return to my hometown in a few days for the New Year holiday. My wife also has not had a job for several months, hence she brought our children back to our hometown more than 2 months ago.

The lodging house’s owner has reduced the rent in the last few months, tenants like us are very happy, will continue to rent the room and come back after Tet”.

Not only employees in Ben Cat Town, the joy of thousands of employees staying in Thu Dau Mot City, Thuan An City, Di An City, Tan Uyen Town is also being multiplied day by day when there are more lodging houses reducing rent.

Take the lead in movement

In An Dien commune, people, especially officials from departments, sectors, and mass organizations, have actively took the lead in the movement of reducing housing rent for workers.

Truong Quang Hien, Chairman of An Dien commune Veterans Association, said: “Only at our association, there are about 50 members who have lodging houses for rent. Since the commune launched the movement, there are about 30 members reducing housing rent to support workers.”

Hien's family currently has nearly 10 rooms for rent. He himself is also a pioneer in sharing difficulties with employees, especially during the peak time of Covid-19 pandemic.

“For workers who have stable jobs, I reduce the rent by 300,000 VND/room; for workers who don't have job now, I offer rent exemption in December 2022 and January 2023. At the beginning of this school year, I not only reduced the rent, but also support some money to children in my lodging house. My family is preparing Tet gifts for workers who will stay in Binh Duong on the coming Tet holiday, there will be enough rice, meat, and necessities for all tenants," said Hien.

Le Huu Duc, Vice Chairman of An Dien commune People's Committee said: “An Dien commune has been strongly propagating the reduction of housing rent to support workers at the end of the year.

Members of Veterans Association, Women Union, Youth Union, who have lodging houses for rent, they are pioneers and set an example to spread this movement.

The local administration will summarize the number of households having difficult circumstances and workers staying here during Tet to mobilize supports for them.

It is known that, besides An Dien commune, many other areas in Ben Cat town and localities in the province are mobilizing lodging house’s owners to decrease rent. This is a very meaningful action to help employees overcome difficulties on the threshold of the New Year.

Nguyen Kim Loan, Chairman of the Provincial Labor Confederation: “Besides coordinating with localities to mobilize lodging house’s owners to exempt and reduce housing rent, the Provincial Labor Federation proposed plans to support employees, such as trains and buses to travel during Tet; open Tet fairs of Trade Union; visit and take care of employees having extremely difficult circumstances; organize spring entertainment programs...

We also proposed a plan that the Provincial People's Committee will support a double amount of Tet gifts for employees compared to the year 2022, because it is forecasted that this year many more workers would stay in Binh Duong during Tet. The provincial Labor Confederation also put forward a suggestion that the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor reduce or extend trade union fees and costs, implement other supporting policies for employees, such as the recent housing rent support program.

Reported by Quang Tam - Translated by Ngoc Huynh