ドイモイ最初期における労働組合の諸活動とベトナム労働総連合（VGCL）の方針

抄録

The series of reforms in the earliest phase of Doi Moi (renewal) in Vietnam, carried out during the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, brought about drastic changes in the circumstances of employed workers and trade unions. As a result of a restructuring of the workforce, 70,000 workers were laid off from state-owned enterprises or the public sector and many of these transferred to the private sector. At the same time, the basis of the organization of trade unions was greatly damaged and it became clear that trade unions would be unable to protect the rights and interests of workers until they changed their organization methods, which had almost entirely depended on government policy relative to employment and workers’ livelihood. This paper focuses on the activities of trade unions conducted as a response to the conditions in those days and the course taken in the early 1990s by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour(VGCL)—which was the only national trade union organization in Vietnam, and was under the control of the Vietnam Communist Party—and reviews these restrictions and historical significance.
In response to the conditions in the earliest phase of Doi Moi, trade unions conducted their own program independently of government policy. Their practical activities in the early 1990s made them highly conscious of their primary role to protect workers’ rights and interests. This was an epoch-making event for the trade unions, which had acted as the authority to implement government policy and whose approach to the protection of workers’ rights and interests had relied almost entirely on government policy. In addition, trade unions tried to diversify forms of organizing workers to strengthen their organizational basis. However, they could not obtain results in line with their expectations, especially in the private sector where the workforce increased rapidly.
On the other hand, the course that the VGCL decided on at the 7th National Congress of Trade Unions in 1993 did not directly reflect the achievement of trade unions, particularly for the fringe organizations. The VGCL’s approach was highly regulated by the political circumstances of the early 1990s. The VGCL moderated its role of protecting workers’ rights and interests and rather emphasized the path of socialism, leadership of the Communist Party and national unity of trade unions under the VGCL umbrella. Thus, in the early 1990s the VGCL gave priority to maintaining the regime although it is obvious that protecting workers’ rights and interests is indispensable to trade unions.