Public outcry over work permits granted to 2,100 Chinese The southern province of Tra Vinh granting of work permits to 2,100 Chinese workers has caused an outcry among the public.   Chinese workers at the Duyen Hai 3 Thermopower Plant Project. The Chinese Chengda Engineering company could not recruit eligible local workers, and employed over 2,100 Chinese workers for the Duyen Hai 3 thermopower plant based in Tra Vinh Province. Tra Vinh’s Chairwoman Son Thi Anh Hong told Tuoi Tre Daily that the local authorities granted the work permits after considering the situation carefully. The newly employed workers are not untrained but are skilled workers and specialists, she said. According to Duong Quang Ngoc, deputy director of the Tra Vinh provincial labor department, China Chengda Engineering tried to look for local workers through the local labor department and job centers. However, the number of Vietnamese workers applying for the jobs was very modest. He added that the Chinese workers would come to Vietnam within four years, from 2014 to 2018. Nevertheless, the explanations by the local authorities could not calm people down. According to Tuoi Tre Daily, the Chinese firm used “tricks” to recruit Chinese workers instead of local people. This newspaper reported that there are nearly 10 labor supply centers in Tra Vinh, which are ready to provide hundreds of workers to contractors. Mr. Trung, who has been contracted to supply Vietnamese labor for a Chinese contractor, said since the beginning of the construction of the Duyen Hai 3 thermopower plant, his company had provided more than 200 Vietnamese workers, both unskilled and skilled. "We have many workers who are waiting for a job. The contractor said they could not arrange work for these people right now so I have to support these people during this time,” Trung said. According to the Department of Labour - Invalids and Social Affairs of Tra Vinh Province, in the first half of the year, nearly 20,000 locals got jobs while 118 others were sent abroad to work. The province currently has to pay unemployment insurance benefits for over 1,700 people with a budget of VND10.6 billion ($500,000). According to Trung, there are other eight manpower supply companies located around the thermal power plant project and each of them has at least several dozen workers and technicians to supply to Vietnamese and Chinese contractors. At Trung’s company, reporters met a group of Tra Vinh workers who were waiting for a new job and another group who had just returned from the construction site. Mr. Thach Song, 32, from Chau Thanh district, said that he had been waiting for a job at Trung’s company for several days but the Chinese contractor said they did not have a job for him now. The workers who had just returned from the thermal power plant construction site said they had worked for a Chinese contractor for 20 days and they were waiting for a new job. One worker said they had been working with Chinese workers. With the same qualification, Vietnamese workers were paid only VND170,000/person/day compared to over VND1 million/day for Chinese workers. "While many Vietnamese workers are unemployed, they recruited thousands of Chinese workers. It is okay if they recruit experts or engineers but they employed unskilled and skilled workers. We (labor supply firms) always have dozens or hundreds of workers available,” Trung said. According to officials of Dan Thanh commune, Duyen Hai district, many local laborers do not want to work for Chinese contractors because of the big gap in salary between Vietnamese and Chinese workers. Mr. Trinh Minh Hung, director of the Tra Vinh Employment Center, said China Chengda Engineering Company had sent its employment announcement to the center. The center then transferred dozens of laborer profiles to the Chinese employer but they were ignored. According to an employee of the center, the Chinese employer used “tricks” to avoid recruiting local workers. He said the employer provided vague recruitment information to the center so it was difficult for the center and local workers. The center sent many worker profiles to the employer but they did not reply. The center even offered free labor recruiting services but the Chinese employer “ignored” the documents. An expert of manpower exporting said that in the last two years, qualified Chinese workers have even refused the Japanese market. So why do they go to Vietnam to receive lower wages and work in a harder working environment? He said that Chinese working in Vietnam are trained workers, not experts and engineers as the Chinese contractor said. Local newspapers in recent months have reported the presence of unlicensed Chinese workers in Vietnam, who have gathered in the so-called “Chinese villages” in Vietnam. In Tra Vinh province itself, the labor department discovered 920 foreign workers, most of them Chinese, working at the Duyen Hai Power Center. Of these, only 517 had work permits, while 165 were expecting work permits and eight did not have to ask for permits. This meant that 230 workers did not have work permits and were working illegally in Vietnam. After the discovery, Tra Vinh provincial authorities immediately released an “ultimatum” to unlicensed workers, saying that they must not be at work beginning May 15. Tra Vinh is not the only province where there are unlicensed Chinese workers. The same situation can be seen in many other localities, but Tra Vinh is the only province that appears to be heavy-handed toward workers without permits. According to the Binh Thuan provincial labor department, 528 Chinese workers were found at Chinese construction sites in the province as of March 31. Of thOSE, only 283 had work permits, while the remaining were illegal workers. In Thanh Hoa province, of the 163 workers at the Cong Thanh cement factory, only 49 had university and higher degrees, while the other 114 were untrained workers whom the contractor could have found in Vietnam. Formosa Ha Tinh steel complex project in Ha Tinh Province has also helped bring thousands of Chinese workers to Vietnam. Many of the workers went to Vietnam as travelers and then stayed in Vietnam to work for Formosa’s project. Pham Chi Lan, a renowned independent economist, has given warnings about the massive employment of Chinese workers. “The biggest danger is that local authorities and relevant agencies lent a hand to this (the recruitment of too many Chinese workers),” Lan said. Van Hang, VietNamNet Bridge