Strikes have broken out en masse recently in the industrial and processing parks in Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City, prompting our correspondents to investigate laborers' complaints.

Ngoc Han, 24, who worked for O'Cleer Vietnam in Song Than 2 Industrial Park in Binh Duong, said she had collapsed several times at work.

She worked for the firm for four years and is unable to remember how many times she lost consciousness due to being overworked.

The last time she felt dizzy, she asked her boss to let her off work but he refused. She had no one else to turn to, she said. When the boss went away she rushed to the gate but was stopped by a guard who said "You can't go without the boss's permit. If I let you go, I will be fired."

Han went back to her post and continued working for another half an hour before fainting.

She said every day there are cases of fainting because people have to work like slaves.

Workers toil at sewing machines from morning to night, day after day. At lunch and dinner, the company allocates each worker some thin pork slices which workers have to pay VND3,200 (nearly US$0.2) for.

If they want to stay employed, workers have to obey their boss's instructions no matter how unfair. When they are requested to work extra shifts, they have to grit their teeth to comply despite exhaustion.

Even a seven-month pregnant woman was not given the weekend off, a laborer said.

Starvation wages

According to a report by the HCMC's Party Committee, the city has nearly 1.5 million unskilled laborers working in various business sectors. About 70 percent come from provinces in the Mekong Delta and the rest mostly from the north and central regions.

In the first half of this year, the average monthly income of a worker induding basic wage, extra-shift pay and other allowances was VND1.25 million (less than $80).

Monthly expenses for essentials in HCMC are at least VND1 million ($62) for rent, food, and necessities. Outlays for education, recreation, and healthcare were minimal.

Daily workers can only afford vegetables, soya cakes, eggs, and noodles for their meals.

Only a small percentage of the laborers live in dormitories built by their companies or the industrial parks where they work. The majority of employees rent cramped rooms from local residents.

We visited a 1.2m x 1.6m room in the Binh Tan District, which was rented by two workers at VND200,000 ($12.40) per month.

In this area, poor families with young children live in narrow rooms.

Husbands and wives who cannot pay for nursery schools for their kids choose to work opposite shifts to alternatively take care of the children. Some have to resort to loans with high interests to cover living expenses.

In general, families of workers, who have neither reserves nor bright futures, share the fear that a period of unemployment means starvation.

After a period of time struggling to maintain the family, most couples have to give way and send their children back to their hometown to live with their grandparents.

Such workers who miss their children can hardly save enough money to return home even for the Lunar New Year.

It is a distant dream because transportation costs always surge at New Year. They need at least VND$4-5 million (about $300) in their pocket, as Vietnamese customarily buy gifts for their home-town relatives when visiting after a long absence.

According to statistics by the HCMC's Department of Science and Technology, only 14.5 percent of workers can afford recreational activities such as going to the movies or musical shows. Owning a television is a luxury to many.

Another report by HCMC's Party Committee, found only 18.4 percent of workers get married. Mai Thi Bich Van, an official from the municipal Labor Union, said the situation was the result of intensive overwork and excessively extra shifts.

The National Academy of Politics research revealed the majority of female employees only traveled from their house to work-place, making it hard for them to find boyfriends. The study showed this contributed to higher levels of sexual abuse.

The research also revealed abortion was more widespread among these workers due to limited reproductive education.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

Poor conditions have caused many laborers to return home. But once there they are paid even lower wages in their hometown's industrial parks, especially those in Nghe An and Ha Tinh central provinces.

Since early 2000 the number of industrial parks constructed in the central region has increased, creating employment for local residents. Many laborers who were then working in HCMC and Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces decided to return to find jobs in those parks.

In the Quang Binh Province, the Ho La and Tay Bac Dong Hoi industrial parks have operated for two years but there are only two factories functioning and providing jobs for a few hundred workers. But this province has more than 19,000 people of working age.

Nghe An and Ha Tinh has 70,000 youths in need of jobs annually but only a third of them are employed locally. Industrial parks like Nam Cam, Bac Vinh of Nghe An, and Vung Ang of Ha Tinh were mainly vacant and still in need of industrial tenants.

A guard at the Bac Vinh Industrial Park said there were very few jobs for laborers there.

Nguyen Dang Duong of the Nghe An Province's Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said the industrial parks in the central region were almost totally vacant. The parks were established but could not attract investors.

Duong and other officials visited Binh Duong to view the living conditions of laborers who moved there to work. They found laborers stayed there because the only other alternative was joblessness in their home province.

A female worker of the Song Than Industrial Park in Binh Duong Province struggles to afford to buy vegetables for her family yesterday.

Source: Tuoitre.