Hanoi (VNA) – Specialists from the International Labour Organisation (ILO)on November 8 shared experiences in wage and social insurance issues and gaverecommendations to Vietnam’s draft plan for reforming wage, social insuranceand benefits for national contributors.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, head of the steering committee forreforming wage, social insurance and benefit policies for nationalcontributors, said the Vietnamese Government is drafting the reform plan, whichis expected to be considered at the seventh session of the 12th Party CentralCommittee in May 2018.

This is a difficult job since the scope of the plan is large, Hue said, addingthat it covers the public sector and State-owned and private enterprises,relates to social insurance policies – one of the pillars of social welfares,and impacts almost all people of working age and retirees.

ILO Vietnam Director Chang Hee Lee said thenational policy on wage and social insurance is a key socio-economic policythat affects all citizens’ livelihoods and businesses’ competitiveness. Acrossthe world these policies can be controversial, and it is hard for governments,trade unions and employers to reach consensus, he added.

According to the ILO official, minimum wage functions limitedly in some spheresof a market economy. Collective bargaining between employers and employees isthe key process to specify actual levels of pay and other working conditions.

He said that collective bargaining has yet to develop in Vietnam. Meanwhile,the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement requests the ratification of the ILOConvention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and CollectiveBargaining Convention, which will promote wage bargaining.

Lee suggested Vietnam improves wage statistics and enhance the capacity of theNational Wage Council’s secretariat in monitoring minimum wage’s impacts and tiesbetween wages and jobs.

He also asked for a formula estimating adjustments to minimum wage or fixedparameters in that formula so that adjustments to minimum wage are predictable.

Regarding ways to improve salaries in the public sector, the official said thisis a complex problem as it relates to many different factors, including the sizeof the public sector which is huge in Vietnam, the pay gap between public andprivate sectors, and pay levels for different positions.

He suggested a basic wage in the public sectorbe specified according to the rank employees hold while allowances should beconcrete numbers instead of coefficients.

At the meeting, ILO specialists also recommendedVietnam to change its social insurance policy step by step and expand insurancecoverage.-VNA