Law on Employment (amended): Ensuring the principle of contribution - benefit

The meeting with voters to comment on the draft Law on Trade Unions (amended) and the Law on Employment (amended) organized by the National Assembly Delegation and the Ho Chi Minh City Labor Federation has just taken place in Ho Chi Minh City. The conference attracted 600 union officials and employees to participate.

The duration of benefits is calculated based on the number of months of contribution

Commenting on the draft Law on Employment, Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, a worker at Thu Duc District Public Service Company Limited (Thu Duc City), said that currently, there are employees who are nearly old enough to retire and quit their jobs to receive unemployment benefits (TCTN) for 12 months, then apply for pension benefits.

This situation affects employers because they will have to pay severance pay to those who quit. Meanwhile, every month, enterprises must deduct 1% of their monthly salary fund to pay unemployment insurance (UI) for employees. To ensure the rights of enterprises and employees to work with peace of mind in the long term, Ms. Thuy proposed that there should be regulations on the level of support for employees participating in unemployment insurance until retirement age or their relatives when they are at risk of employment.

From the same perspective, Ms. Hoang Thi Tu Anh, Vice President of the Trade Union of Hoang Lam Company Limited (Thu Duc City), acknowledged that when participating in any type of insurance, participants need to see their minimum rights. Therefore, it is necessary to have a level of support for "unemployed" employees so that they do not feel disadvantaged because they have to pay but do not receive benefits when participating in unemployment insurance.

Mr. Tran Thanh Son, Chairman of the Trade Union of Song Ngoc Garment Company Limited (Binh Tan District), also proposed to remove the regulation that employees are eligible for pensions but have not yet received pensions when the labor contract is terminated, the labor contract is not entitled to TCTN (Point d, Clause 1, Article 94 of the draft Law on Employment). Instead, it should be regulated that employees eligible for pension receive 30% of the TCTN benefit but not more than 18 months, including the time they have received unemployment insurance before to encourage employees to work with peace of mind and participate in unemployment insurance for a long time.

In addition, in order to limit the situation of employees "circumventing the law", if they work for 12 months, they will resign to receive 3 months of TCTN, Mr. Son said that the benefit period should be calculated based on the number of months of unemployment insurance contributions. Specifically, employees will receive 1.5 months of TCTN for every full payment of 12 months. After that, for every additional payment of 12 months, they will receive an additional month of TCTN, but the maximum one benefit period is not more than 12 months, the accumulation is not more than 18 months.

"It is necessary to consider stipulating that the highest monthly salary for unemployment insurance contributions is 20 times the regional minimum monthly salary announced by the Government at the time of unemployment insurance contributions, but the benefit level does not exceed 5 times the regional minimum wage to ensure the correlation between the contribution and benefit levels" - Mr. Son proposed.

Sharing difficulties with workers

Regarding the regulation that employees are entitled to a maximum of 12 months of TCTN, the remaining payment period (more than 144 months of payment) is not reserved in the draft Law on Employment, Mr. Le Hung Tin, employee of Binh Chanh District Public Service Company Limited, suggested that the drafting committee study not to limit the maximum benefit period to 12 months but to extend or give employees a benefit according to the actual number of years of unemployment insurance payment.

This will create fairness and show sharing difficulties with employees. Because reality shows that among the employees who have paid unemployment insurance for more than 12 years, there are many people over 40 years old. After quitting their jobs or being cut by a business, it is very difficult for them to find a stable job, life is very difficult.

Mr. Pham Van Co, Chairman of the Trade Union of Saigon 3 Garment Joint Stock Company (Thu Duc City), said that not counting TCTN benefits for the period of paying unemployment insurance of over 144 months will lead to a situation where employees seek to "ease the losses". Employees will quit when reaching the maximum 12-month benefit threshold, causing disruption to the labor market; affecting the production and business activities of enterprises when there are no experienced and skilled employees or when there are cases of employees negotiating with enterprises to evade payment to profit from policies.

Therefore, the law should allow employees to pay and enjoy TCTN for a payment period of more than 144 months. "Currently, a number of employees have their unemployment insurance benefits suspended due to the dissolvement of enterprises, bankruptcy or absconding owners... The law needs to have feasible solutions to remove this situation to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of employees" - Mr. Co said.

Mr. Le Van Lam, employee of Binh Chanh District Public Service Company Limited, proposed to remove the regulation that employees unilaterally terminate labor contracts and work contracts illegally and are not entitled to TCTN. Because the 2019 Labor Code clearly stipulates that in cases where employees unilaterally terminate the labor contract illegally, they must fulfill their compensation obligations to the employer. Therefore, not receiving unemployment insurance in this case is not to ensure the legitimate and legal rights and interests of employees.

According to Mr. Phan Hoang Dung, employee of Binh Chanh District Public Service Company Limited, the lives of most workers today are still facing many difficulties due to low income, especially workers who are receiving unemployment insurance and have not found a job, making it even more difficult. Therefore, Mr. Dung proposed raising the TCTN benefit from 60% to 75% to contribute to ensuring a minimum living standard for employees when they are unemployed.