Labour Law and (In)justice in Workers’ Letters in Vietnam, Tu Phuong Nguyen
Nguyen's analysis of letters written by Vietnamese factory workers documents a form of legal mobilization known as “rightful resistance.” First coined by O'Brien and Li (2006), “rightful resistance” refers to a type of mobilization that is individual or uncoordinated, and noisier and more confrontational than everyday resistance yet short of rebellion.
It “entails the innovative use of laws, policies, and other officially promoted values to defy disloyal political and economic elites; it is a kind of partially sanctioned protest that uses influential allies and recognized principles to apply pressure on those in power who have failed to live up to a professed ideal or who have not implemented some beneficial measure” (O'Brien and Li 2006:2-3). In the letters analyzed by Nguyen, the workers complained about their employers' illegal conduct and held the government accountable for their plight, appealing to labor rights legislation as well as the communist party's representation of itself as the vanguard of equality and progress.I had a chance to know Mrs Nguyen thanks to her engagement in a legal-aid project, previously funded by Oxfam. With assistance from a labour lawyer, Nguyen managed to compose a complaint letter and appeal directly to the labour inspector against her management's illegal conduct. Despite facing a labour institution that has been notoriously skewed against workers' interests, the legal knowledge she has gained [from legal aid workers] confirmed her conviction that her struggle was legitimate and that her demands should, by law, be met. It is not surprising that her letter is dense with evidence and legal accusations against the company's misconduct, and argues straightforwardly for a proper enforcement of labour law. Below is a substantial portion of her accusations:
According to the legal regulations, the company has to raise wages for employees every year.
We have worked here for many years but our wage has been raised only once from 1.67 to 2.01 [the wage level]. This will affect employees' rights and interests when we retire. We raised our question but the company said that, if we wanted to have a wage increase, we had to take a skill examination to show that we can make a certain quantity of clothes in a certain time.... Such conduct is against the law, as the company is evading its responsibility to employees [author's italics].The reference to “rights and interests” constitutes both legal and moral claims. Legally, the pensions that workers receive each month must be calculated based on their basic wage at the time of their employment, and therefore a low basic wage would later allow for little retirement benefit. Yet it also implicates a moral obligation of employers, derived from their legal responsibility, to ensure employees' welfare and livelihoods. The way Nguyen framed her argument demonstrates an awareness not just of workers' legal benefits, which have been infringed upon by the management, but also of the longer-term ethical consequences borne by the workers.
In 2015, Nguyen also sent a hand-written letter to the provincial authorities, in which she evoked the Communist Party's rhetoric, its moral authority, and its campaigns concerning cadres' conduct. The language and sentiment expressed in her personally composed letter are different from the predominantly legalistic language in her previous complaint letter. It seems that, when legal reasoning was exhausted to no avail, she decided to opt for an emotional appeal to justice. Nguyen herself is not a Communist Party member, yet she derived her judgement from the party's political campaigns that she believed have established the grounds for one's legal and moral behaviour. I shall hereby quote the letter in full to do justice to its extraordinary nature:
During this time, all citizens and party members across the country, including Dong Nai province, are following the law, self-educating and self-training according to the moral lessons of Ho Chi Minh, in order to make certain achievements ahead of the Party Congresses at the local levels.
Unfortunately, there is an enterprise that violates the law, despite being awarded the title “hero in the reform era” and having a party cell. Within the party cell, there are party cadres that have verbally abused and humiliated employees. Yet those cadres are always nominated reward and are holding the positions of the union chairman or vice chairman in the company. So, who will demand equality and legitimate rights and interests for employees?Once more, with all respect, I urge the leaders of all state agencies of Dong Nai province to promptly intervene to save our lives. We are genuine employees who have no rights, lack equality, but experience a lot of coercion by the business.
Because of the wish to demand fair rights and interests for employees, I have sent my petition letters, which have been handled by the state authorities and especially the labour inspectorate. However, those cadres only addressed my complaints in a cosmetic manner and protected the business; they also forced me to sign a meeting memo in which I have to confirm that I will stop sending my complaints and denunciations. Such command has given grounds for the company to punish and repress me in a brutal manner.
I am wondering if there is no justice or equality in our lives, in our society. I guess that I might remain in agony and pushed to my death before my letters are resolved.
As mentioned at the start of the article, Nguyen’s letter bears resemblance to the type of rightful claims made by aggrieved citizens in China, who mobilize official discourse and legal institutions in a hope to curb the power of corrupt and abusive elites. Nguyen arrived at her plea by extensively drawing upon political rhetoric, which has been ironically betrayed by the people who are supposed to act upon its principles, given their position and status. Her sorrowful claim that employees “have no rights” while experiencing “a lot of coercion” implies a breach of both ethical and legal standards on the part of the business and, indirectly, of the state, for condoning the business’s conduct.
She does not just draw on extra-legal claims in a tactical way to justify the authority’s attention, facilitate their intervention, or push the state to deliver legal justice, as has been the case with the American citizens who wrote to the Department of Justice in the Depression era. She also draws upon these claims because she has faith in the values underpinning them and conveys a hope that her letter might ultimately reach a good-hearted official.As such, despite the legally adept complaint language in the type-written complaint letter, her appeal to justice overall is not so different from that of other letter writers: she also holds the state authorities accountable for the workers’ plight and stretches the boundary of law and legal rights to push for an honouring of workplace ethics. More importantly, in connecting workers' grievances to (the lack of) justice and equality “in our society,” Nguyen has eloquently wedded her aspiration for workplace ethics to the fundamentals of the Vietnamese state's socialist vision of equality and progress.
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