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Salaries for workers in the textile industry are expected to rise following an agreement between textile associations and trade unions on working principles that will apply to all companies.

The agreement, signed earlier this week after a two-year survey of textile companies, consists of 14 principles that ensure regulations on salary, extra pay and ways to settle labour disputes, as well as norms for business culture.

The regulations require businesses to pay salaries and others pays higher than the rate currently required in the country’s labour laws.

Truong Van Cam, a union leader, said that salaries and other pays would be about 15 to 30 per cent higher than the normal rate.

Cam explained that this would help deal with the disparity in salaries between managers and workers, with the former earning thousands of dollars and the latter an average of VND1 million (US$52), a month.

There are four salary rates of VND1.2 million, 1.4 million, 1.6 million and 1.7 million, depending on the cost of living of the location where the business is located.

Businesses are not allowed to have a salary chart of more than 15 different pay levels. According to Cam, many businesses had 30 to 40 salary levels. Under that scheme, a worker can earn only a little more because the levels are so close.

Under the agreement, businesses are required to adjust the salary level for a worker after one to two years of working, not two to three years as it is now.

Cam said the agreement would be subject to modification after every six months. Sixty-nine out of 130 businesses, representing 90,266 workers or half of the industry’s workers, have agreed to the new regulations.

Nguyen Xuan Duong, general director of Hung Yen Garment Joint-Stock Co, which employs 10,000 people, said that if businesses wanted to remain competitive, they must pay higher salaries.

Pham Minh Huan, deputy minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the agreement fitted the Government’s effort to reduce administrative interference in the operation of associations and businesses.

"The agreement ensures fairness and higher incomes for workers and I think it will reduce the number of strikes in the industry," he said.

Dang Ngoc Tung, chairman of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour, said the agreement would serve as a basis to ensure benefit sharing between employees and employers.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News