The present report illustrates the findings of assessments conducted between February 2014 and February 2015 by Better Work Vietnam in 193 factories. The key findings are:
Forced Labour: no cases were found.
Child Labour: compliance effort data shows that compliance is improving across the child labour cluster however, particularly in terms of documentation and protection of young workers (e.g. through improved age verification systems).
Discrimination: non-compliance with laws concerning discrimination is low across factories, and this is partly related to the racial, religious and political homogeneity of the factory workforce.
Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining: management interference and discrimination remains high (62% of factories), although compliance effort data shows that the situation among established factories is improving. Half of factories are non-compliant in the area of collective bargaining, the major issues is inadequate consultation between employer and unions and failure to secure approval for an agreement by more than 50 percent of workers covered.
Compensation: more than eight out of ten factories fail to meet legal requirements on paid leave (namely in terms of correct and on-time payment), while half were non-compliant in terms of wage information, use and deductions –mostly due to the still persistent practice of keeping multiple or inaccurate payrolls. At the same time, compliance effort in both areas has improved between the most recent two assessments, by 7 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
Occupational Safety and Health: non-compliance is highest and most concentrated in the OSH cluster, with rates at or above 70 percent in 6 out of the 8 compliance points. However, despite this, there are signs that compliance is improving between the two most recent assessment periods.
Contracts and Human Resources: non-compliance remains relatively high across this cluster, ranging from 47 percent of factories failing to apply correct contracting procedures, to 75 percent of factories failing to meet legal requirements for dialogue, disciplinary and dispute procedures.
Working Time: almost nine out of ten factories are non-compliant in the area of overtime, thus marking the issue out as a leading challenge for working conditions in the industry. Excessive overtime is linked in many cases to both internal productivity and production planning weaknesses (in the factory) and external dynamics related to buyer behaviour and sourcing practices.
Better Work publishes compliance synthesis reports for each of its country programmes, presenting analysis of non-compliance at the aggregate level. The goal of these reports is to provide transparent information for all programme stakeholders regarding working conditions in the factories participating in the programme.