ĐỒNG NAI — The People’s Committee of southern Đồng Nai Province on Sunday decided to spend VNĐ1.4 billion (US$61,500) from its budget to pay for the social insurance of workers of a garment company. 

The director of KL Texwell Vina has fled to South Korea.

Nguyễn Hòa Hiệp, vice chairwoman of the committee, said the payment aimed to make the workers eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

KL Texwell Vina is a fully owned South Korean company. It registered with Vietnamese authorities in December 2015 with a charter capital of VNĐ100 billion ($4.4 billion) and hired 1,928 employees.

Aside from the late payment of salary, the company has also reportedly failed to pay social insurance to its employees since August last year, which amounts to more than VNĐ17.5 billion ($771,700).

Last month, the People’s Committee of Đồng Nai Province decided to use VNĐ7 billion from its own budget to pay for the salary of 2,000 workers so that they could use the money to go home for Tết (Vietnamese Lunar New Year).

On February 12, each worker received 50 per cent of their January salary that KL Texwell Vina owed. They also received another VNĐ600,000 ($26.4) as support from the Việt Nam General Labour Confederation, the provincial labour confederation and the Fatherland Front Committee.

On February 26, the workers resumed work after the Tết holidays, but the company director reportedly did not return.

Many workers, especially pregnant employees, became worried as they were unable to get social insurance benefits since the company did not pay social insurance to the insurance agency.

Last week, a dialogue was held between a working group of the People’s Committee and hundreds of workers of the company to arrive at solutions to their problems.

Nguyễn Thị Như Ý, vice chairwoman of Đồng Nai Province’s Federation of Labour, said the workers of KL Texwell Vina were facing a lot of difficulties.

She said the federation was keeping a count of the number of pregnant and old workers and was trying to convince enterprises in the province to take them in. So far, 15 enterprises have agreed to employ the workers with a stable income, she said.

Earlier too, the working group had visited the company to solve the problems of the employees.

The group asked the workers to compile designation letters and gave advice on how to terminate labour contracts and close social insurance books.

The Trade Union Legal Consultancy Centre, under the Đồng Nai Province’s Labour Federation, has initiated proceedings to file lawsuits against KL Texwell Vina so that its machinery and other assets could be sold off to pay for the workers’ salaries and bonuses. — VNS