Digital transformation to better serve union members

Mr. Pham Hong Hanh - Standing Vice Chairman of the Vietnam National Coal - Mineral Industries Trade Union - said that finance and accounting play a particularly important role in trade union activities. According to Mr. Hanh, the biggest difficulty lies in the team of grassroots trade union officials. At the Vietnam National Coal - Mineral Industries Trade Union, officials working in finance at the grassroots level are mostly part-time. "Many grassroots trade unions have from 6,000 to 7,000 union members, so financial revenue and expenditure management is very important. However, 100% of grassroots trade union financial officials are part-time, while their ability to adapt to digital transformation requirements is still limited," Mr. Hanh assessed.

According to Mr. Hanh, many grassroots trade union officials are not ready to access software with complex processes, while wanting to simplify operations for easy use. This is one of the direct barriers to digital transformation in the Trade Union organization today.

He also believes that it is necessary to increase data interconnection between the trade union financial system and the social insurance agency and salary management systems. This will help manage revenue and expenditure more conveniently, while reducing the workload for grassroots trade union officials. The legal corridor for digital governance in the field of trade union finance is still lacking and not synchronized.

From that reality, representatives of the Vietnam National Coal - Mineral Industries Trade Union proposed that the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor soon build a unified financial management platform throughout the system. According to him, if digital transformation is identified as a key task, there need to be specific goals and targets for each stage.

Mr. Hanh proposed building a set of digital skills standards for officials working in trade union finance. In addition to economic, financial, and accounting expertise, this team needs to be supplemented with digital capacity and appropriately trained at each level.

He also proposed to complete the legal basis for the electronic trade union financial system. According to him, the lack of unified regulations on the legal value of digital documents makes many processes still have to be carried out in parallel in the electronic environment and traditional paperwork, causing waste of time and resources.

In particular, he believes that digital transformation in financial work must aim for the ultimate goal of better serving union members and workers.

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