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Labour Law and (In)justice in Workers’ Letters in Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2017

Tu Phuong NGUYEN
Tu Phuong NGUYEN*
Affiliation:
Australian National University
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Abstract

This article explores whether and how labour law matters in factory workers’ grievances and demands in their letters sent to the unions and state authorities in Đồng Nai Province, an industrial hub in the south of Vietnam. An examination of the letters demonstrates that the legalistic language of rights and other provisions in the Labour Code plays little role in shaping workers’ accounts. A majority of letter writers instead referred to moral aspects of subsistence, reciprocity, and their subjective views of fairness to make their claims. Yet the moral constructions of workers’ claims may overlap and derive from values imbricated within the Labour Code. These observations raise the need to consider the subtle way in which law generates workers’ resistance against management and/or the state, as well as the fluid boundary between law and morality in workers’ narratives of (in)justice.

Keywords

labour lawresistancejusticefactory workersVietnam
Type
Legal Consciousness in Asia
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 29 - 47
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 2018 

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Footnotes

*

PhD Candidate, Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. I would like to thank Lynette Chua, David Engel, Tamara Jacka, Sally Sargeson, Nick Cheesman, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback on earlier drafts of this article. I also wish to acknowledge the Asian Law Institute at the National University of Singapore for providing me partial funding and the opportunity to present an early draft of this article at the Young Scholars’ Workshop in September 2016. Fieldwork for this research was supported by the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. Correspondence to Tu Phuong Nguyen, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Glyn Davis Building, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia. E-mail address: tup.nguyen90@gmail.com.

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