Measures needed to ensure workers’ interests with rise in overtime

The new regulation will take effect from April 1 and is one of the measures to implement the policy of adapting safely and flexibly to the pandemic, helping enterprises to restore their production and address the losses incurred by COVID-19 in the past two years.

A survey by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry shows that about 90% of enterprises were forced to cut jobs in the past two years due to inefficient operation. Therefore, the motion to increase overtime hours has received the backing of the business community and workers. This is because the coronavirus has caused many enterprises to go bankrupt or fall into difficult situations where rising costs make them unable to fulfil production orders.

As such, raising overtime is a much-needed measure to support enterprises in offsetting productivity and output losses during the pandemic and meeting export orders. For workers, overtime will help them have more income, especially for those who are struggling due to prolonged job losses.

But many labour experts have expressed concerns over the overtime adjustment, fearing that enterprises will exhaust their workers. As the business situation remains difficult, employers may find it hard to raise overtime pay proportionally. Therefore, the policy to increase overtime should only be implemented for a short time so that enterprises can fulfil order backlogs.

In the long run, the trend is to reduce the number of working hours. If enterprises want to increase productivity, they need to make technical improvements and change the growth model in order to promote the development of the whole economy.

Employers should also consider an issue that overtime could deteriorate the health of their workers, thereby reducing productivity and product quality, which will hurt their business reputation.

Therefore, organisations representing workers should supervise enterprises so that the policy to increase overtime is not abused by employers to the disadvantage of their workers.

It is necessary to introduce more specific regulations on benefits for workers as well as enterprises’ responsibility towards workers when raising overtime. Workers must be guaranteed to enjoy all their legitimate interests and have a good rest period to recover their health. In addition to a rise in overtime hours, it is necessary to issue regulations on well-deserved overtime pay for workers.