Contrary to much reporting, Vietnam has not authorized independent workers’ unions

By Joe Buckley

January 01, 2022

The Diplomat

Vietnam is a one-party state with a single, state-led union federation, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL). Over the past couple of years, however, a number of English language commentators have claimed that Vietnam has now legalized independent trade unions.

In 2019, just after the National Assembly approved a new Labor Code, Viet Nam News, the main English language newspaper of the state’s Vietnam News Agency, published an article announcing that the country was “allowing independent unions.” In May 2021, IndustriALL, a Global Union Federation to which three of the VGCL’s sectoral union federations are affiliated, asserted that “independent trade unions are allowed to be formed at company level.” And in November 2021, a pro-government English language vlogger stated that Vietnam “passed a law last year allowing independent unions.” One could, then, be forgiven for thinking that independent trade unions that do not have to affiliate with the VGCL are now allowed in Vietnam.

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