Promoting Innovative Practices of Collective Bargaining and Social Dialogue among Employers’, Workers’ Organizations and Government in Line with the New Labour Code, and Ratified Conventions 98 and 144

Viet Nam faces a significant renewal of its frameworks for industrial relations with the foreseen adoption of a reformed labour law in November 2019 in addition to the ratified convention number 98. Reforms will challenge the government, employers and workers and their organization, as well as civil society, to adapt the roles they play in social dialogue and industrial relations. This adaptation will come about because of the changes being made in law to bring them into closer conformity with international standards, in particular the newly ratified Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), which comes into force in July 2020. Adaptation will be needed to meet the opportunities – and challenges – arising from the changes in law. The ILO has worked intimately with its constituents on developing these reforms and considering what they will mean for each of the social partners. With great support from the Government of Japan, this project is about support to taking on constructively the new roles being played under the New Industrial Relations Systems coming into effect in Viet Nam. The immediate objectives: by the end of 2021, employers’ and workers’ organizations are better prepared for genuine collective bargaining and social dialogue in line with the new labour code and ratified Convention 98 and 144. The Outcomes are: Outcome 1: Collective Bargaining practices are innovated and up scaled under the ratified C.98 and revised Labour Code and C. 98 Outcome 2: Workers organizations have become effective in representing workers and negotiate voluntarily with employers Outcome 3 Employers and business associations have become champions of harmonious, stable and progressive industrial relations under the revised Labour Code and C. 98 Outcome 4 Tripartite and bi-partite social dialogue is widely utilized at national, provincial and sectoral levels The project has government, employers and workers and their organizations as its target group, with common as well as unique activities and objectives in mind. Social dialogue grounded in commonly available evidence-based research is both a first output and intended outcome of the project involving all tripartite partner groups. The important primary target groups are employers and workers and their organizations as the parties engaged in collective bargaining, the subject of collective bargaining promotion efforts and mediation conducted by government. The Government at respective level is the secondary target group for action to capture the good practices/lesson learnt and strategize the promotion of collective bargaining and social dialogue through their policy formulation. Similarly, government’s potential mediation service providers will be the secondary target group for mediation capacity building efforts of the project. With the resources available to this project, interventions are expected to build the capacity of new industrial relations actors to engage in social dialogue on matters salient to the new industrial relations systems. Work will be done with government in consultation with the social partners to develop strategies for promoting collective bargaining that are cognizable under international standards. And programmes will be established for developing conciliation services to address the heretofore unknown situation of lawful, independent organizations conflicting with employers over disagreements in collective negotiations.

Project symbol

VNM/19/52/JPN

Admin unit

CO-Hanoi

Start date

01/07/2020

End date

30/06/2022

Total allocation

118042

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

118042

Development Partners

Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Country/Countries

Viet Nam

Outcomes

Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue