Improving the quality of union officials to take the lead in applying technology

Viewpoint from the Trade Union

During the working session at the Trade Union of Apache Vietnam Shoes Co., Ltd. (Long Giang Industrial Park, Dong Thap Province) on the occasion of Christmas celebration in 2025, we seemed to " live" in a multilingual environment because we not only listened to some workers and management board communicate in their mother tongue, but also in Chinese and English.

Although it does not cover all workshops, this shows that if union officials are not knowledgeable at the basic level, it will be difficult to integrate and fully understand the minds of the majority.

Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Han - Chairwoman of the Trade Union of Apache Vietnam Shoes Co., Ltd. said that the enterprise employs about 9,000 workers who regularly need to compensate for both hardware and software.

"Focus on orienting the capacity plan for trade union cadres in FDI enterprises, focusing on organizing soft skills training classes such as negotiation skills, skills to analyze data on productivity - wages and dispute resolution. Encourage and support union officials to learn foreign languages to remove language barriers with the Board of Directors, thereby negotiations will be more effective and direct" - Ms. Han suggested.

At Freeview Industrial Vietnam Co., Ltd., Mr. Le Vo Huu Hanh - Chairman of the Trade Union said that, in addition to the achieved results, the Company's Trade Union is still facing core bottlenecks that need to be resolved.

Accordingly, all union officials work part-time; great production pressure limits time spent on union activities, leading to a lack of in-depth skills such as dialogue, negotiation, conflict management and the application of information technology.

According to Mr. Hanh, if it comes to developing the capacity of union officials, it is necessary to focus on key topics such as conflict management skills, skills to grasp the psychology of workers and applying information technology to management.

"We must focus on practical issues such as employment, income, overtime, occupational safety and hygiene and welfare. In particular, promoting the application of information technology must also be easy to understand, easy to do, easy to apply" - Mr. Hanh said.

Trade unions must play a pioneering role

According to Mr. Phan Van Thang - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Thap province, in recent times, trade unions at all levels in the province have done a good job of propaganda and ideological orientation for union members, creating high consensus among workers. However, we must also be frank and serious in recognizing that the trade union still has many bottlenecks in organization and operation.

The Deputy Secretary of the Dong Thap Provincial Party Committee requested that the Dong Thap Trade Union proactively participate in implementing the breakthrough of "Developing high-quality human resources". Union officials must play a pioneering role, a bridge to help improve the competitiveness of the large number of existing workers.

The immediate need is to develop an in-depth action program to improve vocational skills, closely coordinate in training, retraining, improving skills, practical skills and especially information technology capacity for workers.

"We must innovate and improve the effectiveness of work among cadres, union members, and workers; we must be the leading force in applying technology and diversifying forms" - Mr. Thang said.

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