Ability to meet the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement on labor of small and medium-sized wood processing enterprises

Abstract

The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) offers great
opportunities for Vietnam's timber exports. However, to exploit this
opportunity, wood processing enterprises need toensure the provisions of
EVFTA and relevant laws on environment, society and labor. This report
assesses the ability of small and medium-sized wood processing enterprises
to meet labor regulations based on secondary document res earch,
interviews with representatives of 45 enterprises and 135 employees of
enterprises in Tuyen Quang, Nghe An and Binh Dinh. The results show the
limited ability of these enterprises, especially small and micro enterprises to
respond on labor-related indicators, such as i) Freedom of association and
collective bargaining through trade unions; ii) Use of child labour; iii)
Workingconditions for women; iv) Working time and satisfactory pay; v)
Safe and healthy working conditions; and vi) Industrial relations. The
proportion of small and micro enterprises meeting the assessment indicators
is usually lower than the proportion of small and medium enterprises. The
main difficulties for enterprises in meeting regulations are many legal
regulations, lack of guidance and understandable regulations, employee
awareness, cooperation, finance, human resources and focal agency to
support enterprises in implementation.