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Hard hours and low pay – a worker’s long day in IZ
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Doi Moi – ‘economic renovation’ – has brought thousands of factories to Vietnam where production lines run two and three shifts, churning out goods for the world. What’s it like to be one of the millions of young women who work in these IZ (industrial zone) factories?



A quick meal of workers in front of the gate of their factory.

VietNamNet reporters submitted applications and were hired as production line workers by the Year 2000 Electronics Co. in the Linh Trung 1 Export Processing Zone and the Dai Phat Food Co. in the Song Than Industrial Zone in the suburbs of HCM City.

Over the ten days that they worked at the two companies, they learned about the life of female workers in the industrial zones, young women who are becoming spinsters because they don’t have time for their own lives. This is Part I of their investigative report.


Working overtime day and night

9.30 pm. The gates of companies inside the Song Than Industrial Zone open. Thousands of bone-tired workers stream out at the end of a long working day.

Phuong, a woman who works for Dai Phat, pedals her bicycle toward a boarding house, lines of fatigue showing clearly on her young face. She tells the reporters that working overtime has become so familiar to her and her colleagues that whenever she is allowed to go home early, she “feels strange.”

Phuong returns to her 4th floor rented room. The cold walls of the room are bare but for some scrawled words: ‘a worker’s life is sad’ and ‘I’m fed up’ – traces of former occupants. Within minutes, she is asleep, intent on regaining strength for the new working day that starts at 6 am and ends at 9 pm or 10 pm.

“My life is similar to thousands of workers in industrial zones,” Phuong told us. “We choose to leave our homes to make our living, so we have to work hard like buffalo. I know that it is bad for my health if I work overtime everyday but if I don’t, I will not have money left after paying rent and buying my meals to send home to my family”.

Many workers cannot stand the interminable overtime hours so they quit to seek new jobs. That’s why Xuan, 19, a young woman from the central province of Quang Ngai, left Dai Phat. She said that workers in other companies often work overtime for 40-60 hours per month, but the overtime at Dai Phat had been 100-120 hours, month after month. Sometimes workers have had to work until 11 pm, two full shifts.

Having a snap.

The first meal at their work places is an unforgettable memory for new workers. Each gets a tray of food from the company kitchen, rice, soup and a savoury, but the food is cold and made of poor-quality ingredients. There’s not a single piece of vegetable in the soup, the rice is overcooked and hasn’t a bit of aroma. Though you swallow the whole meal, you don’t feel full.

At the DH Footwear Company, a worker named Huyen complained that “they always choose the cheapest fish in the market to cook with a little soy sauce or nuoc mam. Pork is cooked with stinky bamboo shoots and it looks awful. You can wash your hands for three days and still not get rid of the smell.”

“Then they give us rice and dried fish,” Huyen added. “How can we swallow dry rice, dried fish and watery soup? We told each other to to eat that food. But even when we refused it, they didn’t change the menu.”

Though the women work long overtime hours, their income is very low and the meals between shifts are terrible. Workers at some companies have gone on strike to ask for less overtime work and more pay. Employers always promise to change but there is no change at all. Many workers faint because of overwork and lack of nourishing food.

Loan, who works at the AS Garment Company in the Bien Hoa 2 Industrial Zone (Dong Nai), said that the workers’ meal is priced at 9000 dong but its real value is only 5000-6000 dong.



Fainting on the job

Fainting at the workplace has become an ordinary event, because all of the young women must work hard while on short rations.

Everyone at the Song Than baked goods factory is working at top speed, each pair of hands shaping lumps of dough and throwing them onto a conveyer belt. The noise of the machinery is loud and incessant; worker’s ears ring even in their sleep, the smell of yeast lingers in their nostrils.

“Chi, what’s wrong? My God, she’s fainted!” All turn to look at a tall girl who has fallen to the floor, her face turned greenish-white.

Fainting at the workplace has become an ordinary event, because all of the young women must work hard while on short rations. “If you work at an industrial zone, you have to get used to this fact,” said Thao from the Linh Trung EPZ near HCM City City.

All workers are under great pressure to sustain high productivity. They are paid full salary only if they meet their quota. If they do not, their pay will be docked. Worst of all is the constant pressure they feel from team leaders and supervisors to meet the company’s standards and deadlines.

Loan, a worker in the Bien Hoa 2 industrial zone, said that she burst out crying many times because she was scolded by her group leader. “She doesn’t swear, but she speaks harshly and sarcastically. I feel as though she’s whacking me with a hammer, I’m so tired and miserable.”

Many workers have to work during their meal breaks to try to meet the quota. “In my sleep, I still hear my group leader urging me to work harder and harder,” Loan said.

Thai Phuong