Economic development, cargo handling methods and labour process change: the place of the Vietnamese dock worker in the ‘global’ history of dock work

ABSTRACT

The advent of containerised cargo completely revolutionised shipping and world trade, also transforming the way that dock workers did their jobs. As a result, the docks are one of the most academically scrutinised industries. However, much of the research in this stream is limited to developed countries. Just as the economies of South East Asia are expanding rapidly and gaining increased attention, so more emphasis needs to be placed on the way economic growth and modernisation affect management, employment and administration of key industries in these countries. To these ends, this article will explore the modernisation of the Vietnamese dock industry and examine whether workers there have experienced similar challenges as their counterparts elsewhere, despite the country’s very different path and timing of economic development.

KEYWORDS:

• Dock workers
• ports
• cargo handling
• containerisation
• Vietnam
• technological change

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank management and workers at the Port of Hai Phong, Viet Nam, for their hospitality, and participation in the project.

Notes

1 To be fair to those involved in the Dock Workers project, the two volumes contained thirty-five essays and stretched to 863 pages, arguably ambitious enough without addressing the complex effect containerisation had on the docks.

2 While there are an increasing number of studies that focus on port economics and administration in rapidly developing economies, this trend is not repeated in relation to worker perspectives. See, for example: RTull and Reveley (2008), Thai et al. (2016), and Kutin et al. (2017).

3 The 1986 Đổi Mới, or ‘renovation’, program sought to transition the Vietnamese economy from centrally controlled socialist to market oriented. Before the Đổi Mới, the national economy relied mainly on two forms of ownership, SOEs (State-Owned Enterprise) and COEs (Collective-Owned Enterprise). Since then it has shifted to a multi-sectoral economy operating with market mechanisms. Correspondingly, the number of these two types of organisation have decreased sharply throughout the reform process. Two newly emerging-types, Domestic-Private Enterprises (DPEs) and foreign-invested enterprises, have risen substantially in number thanks to changes in government policy. These sectors play a crucial role in employment and job creation and, as of 2010, have helped provide jobs to over one-third of the total workforce. By 2018, the number of 100% state-own companies has decreased from 588 companies since 1992 to 13 companies by 2012, with the vast majority becoming joint-stock companies. For more detail on the Đổi Mới see, for example: Collins (2009), Beresford (2008), and Irvin (1995).

4 Accessibility was one of the other principal reasons for the selection of Hai Phong as the focus for the project. Foreigners would usually not be allowed to visit port complexes or interview workers, but permission was granted because of personal contacts.

5 In addition to an interview with the Deputy General Director of Tan Vu area of Hai Phong Port, twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with dock workers from two of the main terminals at the port. Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and audio recorded, then transcribed and translated into English for analysis. Interview data was supplemented by operational information on the cargo handling process and how Vietnamese ports are organised and administered from the ex-Head of the Division of Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Vietnam Maritime University (Hai Phong) and Director of the Japan-Mekong Logistics Training Center, Hai Phong. Statistical data was also collected on employment numbers and container Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) throughput at Vietnamese ports from various institutional and online sources, see Appendix 1 for more details.

6 The broad difference between the duties of stevedores and dockers was simple: stevedores worked on the ship handling and organising cargoes which dockers on the quayside sent aboard, usually by sling. Both categories of worker are often subsumed under the generic title of ‘dockers’. Porters were responsible for the transportation of cargoes to/from warehouses on the dock estate. There were also many other grades of dock worker operating on the quayside and docks more broadly in the pre-containerised era.

7 Many ports around the world had already been subject to regulation in the immediate post-war era. Nevertheless, containerisation increased urgency and broadened implementation of efforts to formalise the labour process and workplace relationships, in order to remove casual practices completely from ports. For more detail on regulation and administration in UK, Europe, US, Australia, New Zealand, see for example: Taylor (2017), Turnbull (2012), Davis (2003), Turnbull and Sapsford (2001), Reveley (1999), and Sheridan (1994).

8 Just as employers preferred the flexibility that a casual workforce offered, so some dockers valued the autonomy to pick and choose when and whom to work for, particularly those with specialist skills or experience. This corresponded with their sense of autonomy and control over the way that they did their jobs. Such was the affinity for casual engagement in some ports and countries, that not all dispensed with the casual system of employment in the preamble to containerisation, instead regulating their industry through dock labour schemes or joint union-employer control of work allocation. For example, the casual arrangement persisted in both France and Belgium (Source: Turnbull, 2012).

9 Directly attributable to the advent of containerisation was the growing trend of outsourcing of container-stripping duties, whereby cargo would pass through a port in a container and be loaded or unloaded (‘stuffed and stripped’) at depots outside the dockland area. These inland depots were often not in the vicinity of the docks and hence were not governed by dock labour schemes. In effect this meant that a growing amount of dockers’ work was being done by road haulage companies at these groupage centres, using cheaper labour.

10 In particular, because of the one-party system, the functions of trade unions in Vietnam are markedly different from those in the West. Similar to the situation in China, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) is directly overseen by the Communist Party of Vietnam and all trade unions must be affiliated to it (see Chen, 2010). Although strikes are not unheard of in Vietnam (see Siu & Chan, 2015), they are nevertheless relatively rare and labour activism is not conspicuous like it was on the docks in many Western countries in the post-war era. Questions surrounding labour activism, organisation and industrial conflict can be politically sensitive and, as a result, were not broached during interviews. For more detail on the VGCL and strikes in Vietnam, see, for example: Siu and Chan (2015), Kerkvliet (2011), and Beresford and Nyland (1998).

11 Dockers at the Port of Hai Phong work three six hour shifts across a two-day (48 hour) period. Each shift must be separated by 12 hours down time.

12 The proceeding chronology of the development of the Vietnamese dock industry 1990-present is based on the Vietnamese government’s 2009 Master Plan document (see reference list), an interview with a member of the Board of Directors at Hai Phong Port in 2018 and a 2014 report by Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong Hien, Vietnamese Ministry of Transport, presented at the Logistics and transport conference to exchange best practices on regulations and experiences in the ASEAN region, 10–11 December 2014, Hanoi, Vietnam.

13 See Appendix 1 for more information.

14 See Appendix 1 for more information.

15 See Appendix 1 for more information.

16 In 1995, Hai Phong port handled approximately 117,000 TEUs, rising to around 1.1 million by 2016. Over the same period employment remained relatively constant, from 2850 workers in 1996 to 2,500 in 2016, a 14% decrease (Source: Hai Phong Port database, 2017). See Appendix 1 for more detail.

Additional information

Funding

The data collection for this project was made possible by an internal grant from the School of Business and Management at RMIT International University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Notes on contributors

Greig Taylor

Greig Taylor is Lecturer in Employment Relations at the School of Management, UNSW Business School. Thanh-Thuy Nguyen is Lecturer in Supply Chain Management at the College of Business and Law, RMIT University. Sagi Kunju Kunju Mathew is Lecturer in HR at Curtin Business School. Lan Thi Nguyen is a PhD candidate at the Graduate College of Business and Law, RMIT University.