Formalising and Informalising Labour in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Scholarship on labour informalisation in Vietnam pulls in two different directions. One set of policy-focused literature suggests that there is an increasing formalisation of labour. Literature of critical labour studies and cognate disciplines, however, suggests the opposite; an increasing informalisation of labour as workers must accept less security of employment and income. This article argues that these two trends are both true, and that there has been a simultaneous expansion and informalisation of formal labour. It introduces the concept of the informalising-formalising labour regime. The formalising element of the informalising-formalising labour regime means that increasing numbers of people have been brought into the formal economy, as salaried workers with contracts. Concurrently, work within the formal economy has become increasingly informal. Such workers may enjoy some legal benefits or entitlements, but in comparison to previously existing formal urban jobs this work is much less secure. Viewing informalisation as a form of class struggle from above, the article argues that employers in the garment and footwear industry use many techniques to informalise work. It outlines the informalising-formalising labour regime, focusing on various concrete techniques used by capital to fragment working class power.

KEY WORDS:

• Vietnam
• footwear
• labour
• informalisation
• garments
• capitalism

Acknowledgments

I thank Tim Pringle and four anonymous reviewers for reading and providing useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This period must not, though, be romanticised, as Beresford and Nyland (1998) and Greenfield (1994) seem in danger of doing.

2. Again these data must be considered with the caveat that the factories are not representative at country level and that while “piece-rate workers could on average get a higher hourly wage, they often [lack] social protection and other work-related benefits” (Borino 2018, 14).

3. Many industrial workers are also moonlighting as motorbike drivers for ride-hailing and delivery platforms (Lao Động, April 3, 2019).

4. A later report found a reduction in the use of outsourced workers. The percentage of directly employed women, however, had reduced; all the workers who were brought in-house were male (Wilshaw et al. 2016, 33).

5. The exception to this rule is workers in SOEs; there have not been recorded cases of cicada practices among SOEs.

6. This description of the contradictory class position of team leaders and line supervisors was provided by a line worker at a large export factory. A team leader at a Taiwanese-owned shoe factory in Dong Nai province, expressed similar sentiments, saying the job is hard and stressful because they are between two sides, workers and management (Interview, April 12, 2018).

7. This has been an issue during the COVID-19 crisis. Thousands of workers who have lost their jobs have taken their social insurance payments as a lump sum because they need the money, leading to huge strain on state social insurance budgets and to calls from authorities for workers to stop taking lump sums (Lao Động, April 16, 2020).

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under grant number 24ES/J500021/1.