Enterprises that owe wages and do not pay social insurance are recommended for consideration of criminal proceedings

Workers stop working many times to claim unpaid wages

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Do - Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation Legal Consulting Center - said that since mid-January 2025, because Vinh Thong Company, at that time, had about 320 workers who had not paid their December 2024 salary, all workers had stopped demanding that the company pay their salary.

After the Working Group of the Ho Chi Minh City Industrial Parks and Export Processing Zones Management Board worked, the company representative promised to pay the workers' salaries on January 20, 2025, but until this date, it was still not implemented, so from January 21 to 24, the workers continued to stop working. By 3:30 p.m. on January 24, the company will only pay 35% of the December 2024 food intake and will continue to pay the rest after the Lunar New Year 2025. However, the company still did not pay 65% of December 2024 salary, January 2025 salary with an amount of more than 5 billion VND and is late in paying social insurance until February 2025 of about 14.6 billion VND.

Upset by the above situation, 137 workers of Vinh Thong Company authorized officers of the Legal Consulting Center and officers of the Trade Union of Export Processing Zones and Industrial Parks of Ho Chi Minh City to sue the company for 3.1 billion VND in salary and social insurance payment equivalent to 4.8 billion VND.

After being sued, through negotiations and consultations and working many times, Vinh Thong Company has only paid a portion of the unpaid wages (in April and June 2025) to 137 employees with an amount of nearly 568 million VND. By September 2025, the parties had reached agreements on a number of cases and were brought to trial according to regulations.

After that, the People's Court of Region 9, Ho Chi Minh City issued 118 decisions to recognize the agreements of the defendants and 19 first instance judgments. Accordingly, on September 25, October 30, Vinh Thong Company will pay 137 workers each 35% of their outstanding wages, with an amount of about VND 893 million/time; on November 30, Vinh Thong Company will pay 137 workers the remaining 30% of their wages, equivalent to about VND 766 million. And no later than February 28, 2026, Vinh Thong Company is responsible for paying social insurance for 137 workers.

Proposal to consider and criminally handle the crime of evasion of social insurance payment if there are violations

Mr. Le Van Hoa - Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation - said that as of the evening of October 2, the company had not yet executed judgments that were in effect and decided to recognize the agreements of the parties in court, but had allocated 137 workers, each person 1 million VND. At the same time, Vinh Thong Company continues to organize production activities with 126 employees and provides a salary of 3 million VND/person.

Through information, Vinh Thong Company still does not pay social insurance to 126 employees working at the company, Mr. Hoa emphasized.

According to Mr. Hoa, the enforcement process is expected to be prolonged, leading to increased frustration for the above 137 workers, which is very complicated and can easily be agitated and lured by bad guys, affecting the security and order situation in the area.

Therefore, the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation recommended that the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee and the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee direct the City Party Committee's Internal Affairs Committee to preside over and coordinate with the City People's Court and the City Civil Judgment Enforcement Department to urge and apply necessary measures to speed up the progress of organizing the enforcement of judgments for 137 judgments and decisions that have come into effect, forcing Vinh Thong Company to completely pay debts to workers. At the same time, direct Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance to transfer documents with signs of violations to the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department for consideration, if there is a violation, criminal prosecution will be prosecuted for evasion of social insurance payment according to regulations. Assign the Ho Chi Minh City Inspectorate to comprehensively inspect compliance with labor laws, wages, and social insurance at Vinh Thong Company.

In particular, the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation recommended that the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee and the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee direct the Ho Chi Minh City Police to grasp the situation of enterprises (with signs of dispersing assets, buying and selling illegal enterprises) and the situation of workers gathering in large numbers, affecting security and order.

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