Building a modern and strong Vietnamese working class

The workshop was chaired by comrades: Professor, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang, Politburo member, Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council; Nguyen Dinh Khang, member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Party Delegation, Chairman of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor; Professor, Dr. Ta Ngoc Tan, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, comrade Nguyen Dinh Khang affirmed: Building a strong working class in our country during the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country is an important and urgent task of the Party, the State, the entire political system, each worker and the whole society.

The workshop received 22 in-depth presentations from experts and scientists. The workshop is an opportunity for the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, together with central and local agencies, to look through the lenses of both theory and practice vividly on the aspects of political status, legal status, historical mission of the working class, and the issue of strengthening the nature of the working class of the Party in the current context. In addition, this is an opportunity to evaluate the results of implementing major policies, orientations and solutions on labor, employment, improving the quality of human resources, developing the labor market; innovating training programs, fostering, improving professional and technical skills; issues of working style, labor discipline, improving labor productivity; or the issue of intellectualizing workers...

Speaking at the workshop, comrade Nguyen Xuan Thang emphasized: The documents of the 13th National Party Congress determine: building a modern and strong Vietnamese working class; improving political mettle, educational qualifications, expertise, professional skills, industrial style, labor discipline to adapt to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a very important, correct and timely policy, in line with the new development requirements and conditions of the country in the context of a rapidly changing world. Classicians have proposed the principle that the infertile class is due to the production of the industrial revolution, but the reality of the industrial revolution over the past century shows that the working class is still the product of the way each country participates in industrial revolutions. History records that there have been industrialized countries that have taken hundreds of years, but the countries that are behind, due to inheriting results and having their own methods, have shortened them to 50 or even 30 - 20 years. World experience shows that countries that successfully industrialize must build a team of workers and laborers with the capacity and qualities to operate a modern industry.

To proactively adapt to the fourth industrial revolution, the Communist Party of Vietnam has issued policies and strategies on promoting industrialization, modernization, transforming growth models, restructuring the economy, proactively and actively integrating internationally associated with developing high-quality human resources and building a modern working class in new conditions.

In the Party's theoretical thinking, the modern working class is both a product and a subject of modern industrial production associated with the latest scientific and technological achievements, labor is productive, high-quality, capable of integrating internationally, adapting to rapid changes in technology; has industrial style, labor discipline, scientific ideology, organized under the leadership of the Party. Building a modern Vietnamese working class is the stage of preparing human resources for the period of accelerating industrialization, modernization, taking science, technology and innovation as a driving force for development.

After nearly 40 years of renovation, including more than 15 years of implementing Resolution 20-NQ/TW, dated January 28, 2008, on continuing to build the Vietnamese working class in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization, four years of implementing the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress, the work of building a modern and strong Vietnamese working class has achieved important results: The Vietnamese working class has had strong development in quantity and quality, initially forming a team of intellectual, highly skilled and skilled workers, making an important contribution to the economic and social development of the country. Up to now, our country's workers have had more than 15 million people, accounting for about 15% of the population, 29% of the social labor force, creating nearly 70% of the value of the total social product. Workers and laborers in our country have an increasingly high level of education, professional expertise, labor skills, and industrial style. By 2023, the rate of trained workers will reach 27.2%, of which college and university degrees or higher will account for about 17%, mainly working in high-tech fields, such as oil and gas, electricity, electronics and telecommunications, information technology, automation, chemical technology, biology, etc.

The Vietnamese working class has promoted its pioneering role in the cause of building socialism, the leading force in the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country, the core in the alliance with the peasantry and intellectuals under the leadership of the Party, building the great national unity bloc. The historical mission of the Vietnamese working class in the renovation period is to achieve two 100-year strategic goals: by 2030, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, becoming a developing country with modern industry, high average income and by 2045, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the country, becoming a developed country, high income.

In a socialist-oriented market economy, the Vietnamese working class plays a central role in the cause of industrialization, modernization, and innovation, making a worthy contribution to the cause of innovation, integration and national development. At the same time, with its advantages, the Vietnamese working class has played a central and core role in the alliance, cooperating, helping, and coordinating actions with farmers and intellectuals in carrying out economic development tasks, socio-cultural groups, and ensuring national defense and security.

Vietnam Trade Union has actively contributed to the work of building a modern and strong working class. The Vietnam Trade Union is a large socio-political organization of the working class and laborers, established on a voluntary basis, a member of the political system, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, representing laborers. Trade unions, together with state agencies, economic organizations, and social organizations, care for and protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers. Trade unions directly participate in developing policies related to workers and laborers; participate in propaganda and mobilizing the working class to implement the policies and guidelines of the Party and State; participate in training, fostering, practically caring for workers' lives, accompanying the Government to improve national competitiveness and sustainable development of the country. The growth of the Vietnamese working class reflects the growth process of Vietnamese trade unions.

In addition to the achieved results, the construction of a modern and strong Vietnamese working class still has limitations and inadequacies. The quantity and quality of the working class and laborers in our country have not met the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The training and fostering of workers and laborers still has many shortcomings, not meeting market demand. A part of our workers have low and uneven class awareness and political courage; their understanding of policies and laws is still limited; they are not determined to strive to join the Party, are surprised and indifferent to political and social events and the fate of the nation. Although the Party's resolutions have outlined major viewpoints and solutions to build a modern and strong Vietnamese working class, they have been slow to institutionalize, concretize, or have not been effectively implemented, not really coming into life.

Speaking at the workshop, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Communist Magazine affirmed that the working class is the force crystallizing the intelligence, strength, bravery, patriotism, and labor of the Vietnamese people in the new era; is a key political and social basis of the Party and State; the core team in the public-agricultural-knowledge alliance and the great national unity bloc; is responsible for operating modern facilities and means of production of society; is a force that plays a pioneering role in every revolutionary stage of the nation.

In the new context, it is necessary to continue to build an increasingly strong and superior Vietnamese working class according to the viewpoints, instructions, and spirit that still retains the values of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's ideology, contributing to "maintaining the nature of the working class of the Party, firmly adhering to the principles of Party building", developing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to become increasingly beautiful and prosperous.

Forecasting the transformation trend of the Vietnamese working class to 2030, with a vision to 2045, Associate Professor, Dr. Duong Trung Y, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, said that the Vietnamese working class will have strong changes in the coming years, mainly thanks to the process of industrialization, modernization and economic transformation. However, maintaining social justice, improving the quality of life and protecting workers' rights will still be a major challenge that Vietnam faces on the path of sustainable development. The vision to 2045 is to build a fair and modern society, where workers not only contribute their efforts but are also a creative force, playing an important role in the knowledge economy. To build a country that develops in the direction of socialism, the Party and State must continuously innovate, create and solve new problems arising in the context of the new era. In particular, caring for the working class, developing high-quality human resources and strengthening policies to protect workers' rights will be important factors in the country's development strategy.

Concluding the workshop, Professor, Dr. Ta Ngoc Tan assessed: with a serious and frank spirit, the scientific workshop "Building a modern and strong Vietnamese working class" has successfully completed the contents and requirements. The speeches focused on clarifying the theoretical and practical issues on building the Vietnamese working class today, many discussions proposed a number of solutions to build a modern and strong Vietnamese working class to meet the requirements of the new situation. Specifically:

In theory, the opinions in the discussion all affirmed that the working class is the force that crystallizes the intelligence, strength, bravery, patriotism, and labor of the Vietnamese people in the new era; is the core political and social basis of the Party and State; is the core team in the public-agricultural-intellectual alliance and the great national unity bloc. However, in the current context, it is necessary to continue to build an increasingly strong and superior Vietnamese working class according to the viewpoints of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's ideology. In addition, the impact of the fourth industrial revolution creates advantages, opportunities as well as many challenges, fundamentally changing the thinking, way of thinking, way of doing, and way of life of the working class; the impact of the process of globalization, international integration and implementation of new-generation free trade agreements, traditional security issues, and non-traditional security issues also have many impacts on the working class. The problem of building the current working class must be resolved harmoniously in both theory and practice; it is necessary to continue to clarify and think about a modern class, with the nature of the new era. Modern in ideology, thinking, working style, quantity, quality, reasonable structure. Building a working class with global values but still bearing Vietnamese cultural identity; properly resolving the relationship between class and nation; between the working class and the Party and the political system (in which the working class is the leading class through the Forward Party). To build a modern and strong working class, it is necessary to put it in correlation with the country's development goals, associated with the process of promoting industrialization, modernization, and innovation of the economic growth model.

In practice, the content of the presentations, especially the presentations of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, shows that after 15 years of implementing Resolution No. 20-NQ/TW, of the 10th Party Central Committee, on "Continuing to build the Vietnamese working class in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country" and 10 years of implementing Conclusion No. 79-KL/TW, dated December 25, 2013 of the Politburo (term XI), on continuing to implement Resolution No. 20-NQ/TW, the material and spiritual life of the working class has been gradually improved; employment is stable; wages and income are improved; the working environment ensures safety, hygiene and labor; labor relations are harmonious, stable, progress, labor disputes and collective work stoppages have decreased. The implementation of grassroots democracy regulations is getting better and better; social security and social welfare regimes are developing... However, in addition to the achieved results, practice shows that some urgent problems of workers have not been completely resolved.

Regarding solutions, in the face of the limitations raised, the presentations and opinions discussed agreed on the point of view, in order to build a modern and strong working class to meet practical requirements, all levels and sectors need to implement a number of the following solutions:

First, continue to research and perfect the theory of the working class in new conditions.

Second, improve the effectiveness of participating in developing and implementing mechanisms and policies for the working class; promote and improve the quality of vocational training; effectively implement policies and laws and care for and protect legitimate and legal rights and interests and improve the material and spiritual life of workers; focus on employment policies, invest in production and business to create more new jobs, attract more and more workers to work; encourage and create opportunities and material and spiritual conditions for workers to study to improve their professional qualifications, skills, foreign languages, promote talent, intelligence, diligence, spirit of overcoming difficulties and dedication; speed up the implementation of housing projects and cultural institutions for workers in industrial parks and export processing zones; pay attention to and care for human life.

Third, pay attention to fostering political awareness, class awareness, national pride and self-respect for the working class; build and organize a good spiritual and cultural life for workers; invest appropriately in propaganda and education activities for workers; innovate political and ideological education to build and raise political awareness for workers; innovate propaganda on the system of policies and laws, care for the material, spiritual and cultural life of the working class.

Fourth, continue to promote workers' intellectualization, strong innovation, perfect economic institutions, restructure the economy in the direction of quality and efficiency, increase competitiveness; organize a labor market information system; support businesses in ensuring production and business, maintaining jobs for workers; promote extensive propaganda in society and in each enterprise to have a practical understanding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, workers' intellectualization, etc. On the contrary, workers need to proactively and actively raise awareness of their own important position and role in the overall development of enterprises as well as the whole society, determine lifelong learning motto, enrich knowledge and professional skills, proactively absorb and apply new science and technology, and at the same time, be ready to change, adapt to new work and new requirements.

Fifth, improve the ability to access and master science and technology of the Vietnamese working class in the fourth industrial revolution; develop a forecast on human resource needs for each industry as a basis for developing a long-term, medium-term and short-term training and labor allocation plan; restructure training in occupations in accordance with priority development occupations; in training to meet the requirements of practice; in training, it is necessary to combine school training with practical training at enterprises; enterprises must have a plan to use labor, rearrange labor, and retrain in parallel with the development of investment plans for new equipment and technology; have policies to ensure job security and social security for disadvantaged workers, among workers who have to switch in the process of applying science and technology to new labor, and those who have not yet met the requirements for female workers.

Sixth, strongly innovate the organization and operation of Vietnam Trade Unions in the spirit of Resolution No. 02-NQ/TW, dated June 12, 2021, of the Politburo... Innovate the organization and operation of trade unions in accordance with the number, structure of labor, needs and aspirations of union members and workers and the requirements of international integration; expand the coverage of trade unions in all types of enterprises to gather and develop union members; attract workers to join trade unions from the effectiveness of caring for interests; build and strengthen trust through activities to care for and protect legitimate and legal rights and interests so that union members and workers are attached to trade union organizations; innovate the Party's leadership methods for trade union organizations, while ensuring the consistent leadership of the Party, especially the Vietnam Trade Union, develop the country's industrialization and promote the country's industrialization.

Seventh, strengthen the leadership of the Party and the State's attention to the working class; issue a new resolution on building a modern and strong working class as a premise to build a Vietnam Workers' Development Strategy to 2030, with a vision to 2045, especially building a team of intellectual workers; maintain and enhance the nature of the working class of the Party to go hand in hand with building a clean and strong political system, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the socialist rule of law state, promote the role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and people's organizations; consolidate and strengthen the alliance of the working class - farmers - intellectuals; promote a harmonious, stable and progressive labor relationship model between workers and employers, the working class and the business class in the socialist and economic system; resolve the historical and historical problems, resolve the role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the people's cause, resolve the goals of the revolutionary and revolutionary struggle; resolve the role of the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause, the people's cause of the people's cause, the people's cause of the people's cause, the people's cause of the people's cause.