VietNamNet Bridge – Many companies in HCM City plan as usual to help disadvantaged workers go home for Tet (the Lunar New Year) and organise celebrations here for those staying back.

Hanoi: Thousands of workers to be helped to go home for Tet holiday

A worker buys a train ticket at the Sai Gon Railway Station. Many companies in HCM City plan to help disadvantaged workers go home for Tet and organise celebrations for those staying behind.

This is besides the bonus and early salary all employers pay in the country to enable their workers to celebrate the New Year.

Pou Yuen Viet Nam, a Taiwanese company that makes sports shoes, would disburse around VND600 billion (US$28.6 million) in bonuses despite the economic downturn, Cu Phat Nghiep, the chairman of its trade union, said.

The bonuses will be paid by February 7, three days before the New Year.

It will be closed from February 7 to 14, while those whose hometowns are far from the city will be allowed to return on the 18th.

It has arranged for 30 buses to take employees to their hometowns.

For those who cannot go home for the New Year, it will organise a music programme at a cost of VND200 million
All employees who are members of the trade union will receive gifts worth a total of VND11 billion.

Duy Tan Plastic Co's trade union said the bonuses for the company's 2,000 workers are sure to be higher than last year.

Like every year the company will provide 700 workers bus tickets to return home and also operate several buses itself.

Many state-owned companies including the Sai Gon Railway Management Company have also promised that New Year bonuses will not be lower than last year.

The HCM City Federation of Trade Unions plans to hold a meeting with 500 workers' families which have either spouse has become jobless, the wife is pregnant, or have young children but become jobless.

Six thousand workers in industrial parks and export processing zones will get bus tickets to return home to the north, 70 per cent of them from their employers and the rest from the park and zone authorities. Another 500 tickets will also be provided to trade union members.

Those who do not return home will get gifts.

Nguyen Van Khai, deputy chairman of the HCM City Federation of Trade Unions, said ensuring workers are paid salaries in time is very important for them to celebrate the festival.

Trade unions at distressed companies should take the initiative to discuss with employers measures to pay salaries and bonuses to workers, he said.

Every year city-based firms struggle to get enough workers after the New Year to keep their production lines going since many stay back in their hometowns and find jobs there.

Source: VNS