Nguyen Kim Loan, Chairwoman of Binh Duong Provincial Labor Confederation: Expecting the success of the 13th Congress of Vietnam Trade Union

The 13th Congress of Vietnam Trade Union, tenure 2023-2028, takes place from December 1 to 3, 2023 in Hanoi with the participation of 1,100 delegates. On this occasion, Binh Duong Newspaper had an interview with Nguyen Kim Loan, Chairwoman of Binh Duong Provincial Labor Confederation, about the expectations and proposals of Binh Duong Trade Union at this congress.

Nguyen Kim Loan, Chairwoman of Binh Duong Provincial Labor Confederation.

- Madam, representing more than 820,000 workers and public employees in the province, what are expectations of the Binh Duong Trade Union delegation at the 13th Congress of Vietnam Trade Union?

- The 13th Congress of Vietnam Trade Union is an important political event for trade union members and workers. The Binh Duong Trade Union delegation hopes and has strong belief that the congress will be as successful as expected. The Congress will elect Executive Committee of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor and leadership positions for the new term who are exemplary in terms of capacity, responsibility, dedication to the trade union organization, and always act for union members and workers to lead worker movements and trade union activities to be increasingly developing and effective. In particular, the congress will propose many policies, tasks, and solutions, opening up new development directions to make trade union activities more appropriate and meet the requirements and tasks in the new situation.

- Madam, what key issues will the Binh Duong Trade Union delegation focus on at the congress?

- At this congress, the Binh Duong Trade Union delegation will join the whole country in 10 thematic forums to exchange and propose initiatives for 10 major issues facing the trade union organization. The Provincial Trade Union delegation will speak at 3 forums about "innovating the work of gathering and mobilizing workers to join trade unions; improving the quality of grass-roots trade union presidents"; "assembling resources, promoting dialogue, negotiation, and signing of collective labor agreements, especially on wages and working conditions"; "Solutions to firmly grasp the situation of workers, stabilize labor relations, and ensure security among workers"; At the same time, actively participate in discussions and contribute opinions collected from practical trade union activities at the grassroots level to completing documents and solutions to organize and effectively implement the congress resolution.

Nguyen Kim Loan (left), Chairwoman of the Provincial Labor Confederation, gives support "Trade Union Shelter" to workers having difficult circumstances.

- What proposals does Binh Duong Trade Union have to contribute to consolidating and improving the quality of grassroots trade union activities in enterprises outside the state-owned sector?

- Currently, Binh Duong has about 4,200 grassroots trade unions with over 820,000 members; including 3,336 grassroots trade unions with nearly 770,000 union members in enterprises outside the state-owned sector (accounting for 96% of the total union members in the province). To improve the quality of grass-roots trade union presidents at enterprises in the current situation, Binh Duong Trade Union proposed some solutions associated with the breakthrough in implementing the Resolution of the 11th Binh Duong Provincial Trade Union Congress, tenure 2023-2028. That is to strengthen propagation work, raise awareness of grass-roots trade union presidents in businesses, and their skills to grasp public opinion that affects union members, employees and businesses. Next is to build a team of grass-roots trade union officials with enough capacity and quality, on par with trade union tasks in the new period, to select grass-roots trade union presidents that meet expectations of a large number of union members and workers; explain forms of enhancing democracy so that union members can directly introduce personnel and elect grassroots union presidents that meet the conditions and have credibility in accordance with Charter of Vietnam Trade Union; strengthen training and fostering to improve the capacity of grassroots union presidents in enterprises; agree on the General Confederation of Labor to develop documents to serve the training and fostering work as a handbook for the Presidents of grassroots trade unions in enterprises.

In addition to professional knowledge and skill trainings, Binh Duong Trade Union proactively coordinates with Provincial Political School to organize short political theory training courses, combined with training to improve political bravery, capacity, qualifications, and public activity skills for grass-roots trade union presidents in enterprises; organize visits to learn experience from good models and effective practices in trade union activities, creating opportunities for grass-roots trade union presidents to meet, exchange, and improve professional capacity.

Additionally, we also pay attention to monitoring, detecting, praising and rewarding to promptly encourage grass-roots trade union presidents that have excellent achievements in trade union activities, building exemplary factors to foster, enlighten, and become a core and prestigious force among union members and workers; On that basis, to introduce these to the Party’s training and accession.

- In order for workers in the area to work with peace of mind, what recommendations and suggestions will the Binh Duong Trade Union have at this congress, ma'am?

- In the coming years, the working conditions and environment of trade unions and the development of the Vietnamese working class are forecast to have important changes. Trade unions and the Vietnamese working class face many challenges, requiring trade unions to actively innovate their operating methods to further promote their role for workers. Therefore, Binh Duong Trade Union proposes the following ideas:

Firstly, regularly raise awareness of trade union officials about the Party's views and policies, the State's policies and laws on the role of the working class and trade union organizations in the new context; continuously innovate operating methods of trade unions, based on a correct assessment of the current situation of the worker movement and trade union activities in recent times, confirm the results achieved, point out shortcomings, weaknesses, causes and lessons learned.

Second, continue to organize, launch and effectively implement emulation movements in businesses, focus on the emulation movement "Good workers, creative workers", arousing will and aspirations, national pride and self-respect; foster, train, raise awareness and political courage, qualifications, skills, industrial style, legal knowledge, and labor discipline for employees; actively promote the pioneering and exemplary role of employees, especially in private enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises, to promote initiatives and improve productivity, quality and efficiency in production labor.

Third, continue to innovate trade union operating methods by closely following the grassroots, supporting, guiding and accompanying grassroots trade unions; proactively grasp thoughts and aspirations of union members and employees, proactively propose and coordinate with employers to promptly remove difficulties and obstacles related to the labor relations, contributing to building harmonious, stable and progressive labor relations in enterprises; Improve the effectiveness of direction and inspection of superior trade unions towards grassroots unions in the direction of strengthening professional guidance and enforcement of trade union and labor laws.

Fourth, focus on building a strong trade union organization, attach importance to building and creating a source of union officials at all levels, focus on building a team of grassroots union officials to meet requirements, tasks, and standards, truly excellent in terms of quality, capacity, reputation, having enough skills, knowledge, bravery and confidence in dialogue and collective bargaining with employers to protect rights and interests and legitimate interests of employees...

- Thank you so much!

The 13th Congress of the Vietnam Trade Union, term 2023-2028, is an important political event for the working class and the Vietnam Trade Union organization, and is an extensive political activity among union members and workers nationwide. The Binh Duong Trade Union’s delegation attending the congress had 36 delegates; including 4 ex-officio delegates, 31 delegates elected at the 11th Binh Duong provincial Congress of Trade Union, and 1 designated delegate, representing more than 820,000 union members in the province...

Reported by Minh Duy - Translated by Ngoc Huynh