A new set of tools that emphasise employee-employer dialogue, neutral evaluations and sustainable compliance with labour regulations are needed to resolve workplace conflicts in Việt Nam, experts said at recent workshop held in HCM City. — Photo baobinhphuoc.vn

HCM CITY —  A new set of tools that emphasise employee-employer dialogue, neutral evaluations and sustainable compliance with labour regulations are needed to resolve workplace conflicts in Việt Nam, experts said at recent workshop held in HCM City.

Đặng Thị Hải Hà, founder of Respect Việt Nam, which develops workplace-improvement programmes, said that wildcat strikes and disputes in the country had been triggered by prolonged or unsettled conflicts in the workplace.

Resolving disputes when they have already occurred "is only the tip of the iceberg", she said at the workshop, which examined how to effectively manage conflicts between employees and employers.

"Integrated conflict management" offers lasting solutions, she said, adding that dialogue between employees and employers in Việt Nam had been poor and that a system for identifying and solving conflicts had yet to be developed.

Hà suggested a set of tools called WE@WORK that helps employers and employees work together to build a lasting integrated conflict-management system.

Such a system improves daily sustainable compliance and continuous enhancement of workplace efficiency, helping to prevent disputes, she said. 

It also assists companies in complying with labour laws and international labour regulations in a sustainable manner.

For instance, the tool WeTALK is used for continuous conflict identification, decoding and resolution tracking, according to Hà.

The tool includes one set of codified and standardised forms. Workers who have questions or complaints about problems related to their jobs submit their ideas on forms to managers via a box.

The managers read the forms and provide feedback on a yellow form that is attached to the factory’s employee noticeboard.

The tool has been used with positive results in factories in Nha Trang and the provinces of Bình Dương and Bình Phước, Hà said.

At the workshop, Vũ Minh Tiến, deputy head of the Institute for Workers and Trade Unions at the Việt Nam General Federation of Labour, told Việt Nam News that nearly 300 strikes had occurred last year.

Tiến said that economic growth had been stable in the last several years, and that provincial and city authorities had created conditions for trade unions to operate for the benefit of workers.

Free trade agreements signed between Việt Nam and other countries in recent years have urged the use of integrated conflict management in order to protect jobs and incomes as well as improve workplace efficiency and competitiveness.

The workshop was organised by Respect Việt Nam, the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolutions at Cornell University (US) and Tôn Đức Thắng University in HCM City. — VNS