For the past month, the family meals of Nguyen Thi Ut, a worker at shoe maker Samho Vietnam in the Cu Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City, consisted mostly of vegetables and fish sauce. Ut and her husband, who works as a bricklayer, have lost their jobs and have had no income for the past two months. Now even their rent is overdue by 10 days.
On July 14, his business was temporarily closed due to Covid. During the first 14 days, she still received the regional minimum wage. But at the end of the month, due to financial difficulties, the company announced the suspension of contracts with all staff. The factory said it had already recruited workers who had lost their jobs more than a month ago for government financial aid, meaning each person could get VND 3.7 million in aid.
“But it’s been almost two months now and I haven’t received any financial support,†Ut said.
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Nguyen Thi Ut (right) and his family have lunch in their rented room. Photo by VnExpress / An Phuong |
When she had no money to buy food, her landlord rushed her to pay the deferred rent. So, over the past ten days, she repeatedly called the company’s human resources department to get a proper response.
She said that if this situation persisted, her whole family would find a way to return to their hometown in southern An Giang Province.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang, a representative for Samho Vietnam, said Ut was one of 9,200 employees who had lost their jobs but had yet to receive financial support from the $ 26 trillion pandemic relief program. of VND released in July.
On July 28, the company submitted worker applications through the national civil service portal. After that, they approved the application and transferred it to the Cu Chi District Labor Department for review, but were rejected.
“Every day I receive hundreds of phone calls from workers complaining that they have not received financial assistance as the self-employed have received their third package. Many workers are pushing to return to their hometowns because they cannot no longer fit in the city, â€Hang said.
Explaining the return of the Samho Vietnam Company case, Le Dinh Duc, vice chairman of the Cu Chi District People’s Committee, said at the time that the HCMC People’s Committee did not allow the district to approve the applications. financial assistance.
When HCMC leaders authorized the district to approve the applications on September 13, the company continued to send documents, but the district people’s committee has yet to receive instructions from HCMC’s labor department on the issue. way to deploy payment for employees with open employment contracts. or who has taken unpaid leave.
Likewise, from July 15 until today, Tan Thanh Trading Mechanic JSC, which manufactures and distributes containers in the city of Thu Duc, has temporarily suspended employment contracts with 180 employees. They will receive financial support of VND 3.7 million from the package.
To help workers receive help, the human resources department had to repeatedly contact local authorities to complete the cases, said Tran Van Hung, president of the company’s union.
In particular, the most difficult was to provide a list of manual signatures for each worker. However, more than 50 percent of these workers had already returned to their hometowns.
In this situation, the business owner must instead sign the confirmation and agree to complete the employee’s signature when they return to work. The procedure has been approved, but so far no one has received any money.
Currently, HCMC has nearly 23,000 businesses and enterprises with over 300,000 employees on unpaid leave or temporarily suspended employment contracts who have not received financial support from the VND 26 trillion package.
According to the progress of disbursements of support programs for people facing difficulties due to the epidemic of the People’s Council of HCMC, nearly 76,000 workers received 1.8 million VND each as of September 12.
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People living in a residential area of ​​Dong Hung Thuan Ward, District 12 of HCMC, receive support from benefactors. Photo by VnExpress / Le Tuyet |
Application documents receiving assistance under the VND 26 trillion package have yet to wait as the districts and town of Thu Duc have yet to receive further instructions on how to roll out the payment.
On September 15, the city’s labor department sent a document to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs asking it to address some approval and disbursement issues.
Responding to VnExpressHCMC People’s Committee vice-chairman Vo Van Hoan said that initially supporting workers with temporary suspension of employment contracts and unpaid wages encountered difficulties because companies were not proactive and feared cumbersome procedures.
Currently, the city is speeding up support programs for workers who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The city’s labor department will provide additional guidance to the localities.
HCMC currently has over 4.7 million employees, of which over 3.2 million are informal workers in nearly 287,000 large enterprises and over 465,000 in small enterprises.
In the past two months, in addition to a VND 26 trillion government relief package released in July, the city has issued three of its own packages worth a total of VND 11.5 trillion for help the poor as well as businesses affected by the pandemic. .
Saigon in the battle of Covid-19. Video of VnExpress / Vu Tuan
