The Free Viet Labor Federation decides to promulgate this Communique to bring into the open the existence of the Free Viet Labor (FVL) as one among the civil society community in Vietnam which is meant to protect the legitimate rights of Vietnamese workers--rights which up to now are being neglected.
June 9, 2014
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) proclaims itself to be a state built on a worker-peasant coalition but in reality it has betrayed the interests of these two largest groups in the population of Vietnam.
This can be witnessed in the millions of victims of land injustice that one sees roaming the country and the Vietnamese workers throughout history have also never been as exploited as they are at the present time, showing a huge gape of income between the rich and the poor throughout Vietnam.
Because the Vietnamese General Confederation of Labor (VGCL), which is supposed to represent the interests of the working class, is in actuality an instrument of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), it is unable to protect these interests. That is why:
1/ Since 20 October 2006, an Independent Vietnamese Trade Union has been born.
2/ The United Worker-Farmer Association of Vietnam was also established on 30 December 2006 in Vietnam.
3/ The Vietnamese Labor Movement was also formed on 29 October 2008 in Vietnam.
Despite their leaders being harshly repressed (through the imprisonment of Attorney Le Thi Cong Nhan of the Independent Vietnamese Trade Union, the whole leadership of the United Worker-Farmer Association of Vietnam, and three main players in the Vietnamese Labor Movement, to wit Doan Huy Chuong, Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung and Do Thi Minh Hanh), these three organizations have come together into one coalition with the Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers, founded on 29 October 2006 in Warsaw, Poland, to form the Free Viet Labor Federation, abbreviated to Free Viet Labor (FVL), at its first Convention held in Bangkok, Thailand, on 17 January 2014.
The creation and operation of the above organizations is based on Articles 53 and 69 of the 1992 Vietnamese Constitution as well as on Articles 25 and 28, Chapter 2, of the 2013 Constitution of the SRV, the basic law of the land. This is also in accordance with ILO's Convention n. 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (July 9th, 1948) and Convention n. 98 concerning the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (July 1st, 1949).
The long process of creating the FVL which has been taking place in the last eight years is also in tune with the democratization trend happening in Vietnam, it is also a sine qua non condition spelled out by ITUC and AFL-CIO among others as Vietnam is seeking entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Today, therefore, the Free Viet Labor Federation decides to promulgate this Communique to bring into the open the existence of the Free Viet Labor (FVL) as one among the civil society community in Vietnam which is meant to protect the legitimate rights of Vietnamese workers--rights which up to now are being neglected.
On this occasion Free Viet Labor demands that the Vietnamese authorities release at once and unconditionally the labor activists currently in jail in Vietnam, specifically Doan Huy Chuong, Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung and Do Thi Minh Hanh--prisoners of conscience who have been adopted by many human rights NGOs in the world (Amnesty International, Human rights Watch, Freedom Now, Defending the Defenders...) and even U.S. members of Congress.
Representing FREE VIET LABOR:
Tran Ngoc Thanh, Chairman
Le Thi Cong Nhan, Vice Chair
Doan Huy, Spokesman. Email: congnhanbinhduong05@gmail.com
