Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘Defending Their Rights and Interests’: Bringing Law to Workers’ Residences

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Workplace Justice

Part of the book series: Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific ((CSAP))

  • 242 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter discusses legal aid activities in Đông Nai Province in which workers are both the main beneficiaries and active participants in legal mobilisation. The ‘core workers,’ recruited and trained under this project, have employed their legal knowledge to offer legal assistance to ordinary factory workers in their residential areas, at the same time engaging with law enforcement institutions to demand justice for themselves and their fellow workers. The chapter highlights the catchphrase of ‘defending their rights and interests’ as a thread that runs through the union’s legal aid objective and examines the potential of legal aid in shaping workers’ views of labour relations and workplace problems, providing the social space for grievance sharing, and enabling disadvantaged workers to break their silence against unjust practices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    As the Chinese state is concerned with preserving stability and social order, scholars have argued that the state’s encouragement of citizens’ use of law is aimed at controlling grievances and conflicts (Friedman and Lee 2010; Gallagher 2017).

  2. 2.

    These organisations often face burdensome registration procedures, scant funding, and close monitoring from the state (Becker 2014; Chan 2012). They were set up by former migrant workers and professionals concerned with workers’ rights. While organisations that vocally advocate for workers’ rights and collective actions are co-opted and repressed by the state, others which provide social welfare services that serve the state’s interests work in tandem with the state and union. These organisations provide disadvantaged workers with free legal assistance, such as advising them on claim-making strategies, and social welfare support (Friedman 2009; Chan 2012; Becker 2014). Yet the largest organisation providing legal aid for employees in China, as indicated in Gallagher’s 2017 book, is the Legal Aid Centre affiliated with the Shanghai law school.

  3. 3.

    These core workers, whose roles will be discussed in the next chapter, have a good relationship with the LAC.

  4. 4.

    This means a wage level for newcomers, which is much lower than the wage level that senior workers have been paid during their employment.

  5. 5.

    Information obtained by the author from the ‘Conference on experience sharing and developing models of support for migrant employees’ (Organised by Centre of Research—Consultation for Social Work and Community Development and Southern Institute of Social Sciences, Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam, 17 December 2015).

  6. 6.

    As much as I wish to interview ordinary workers to see how they opine about the core workers and the legal sessions, I was unable to do so due to the timing of my fieldwork (which took place almost one year after the project’s heyday had passed) and the difficulty of recruiting ordinary workers who had joined any of the legal session.

  7. 7.

    Information obtained at the ‘Conference on experience sharing and developing models of support for migrant employees’ (Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam, 17 December 2015).

  8. 8.

    This session was organised after Oxfam ended its funding to the project. However, the format and content of the legal sessions remained the same.

  9. 9.

    The Vietnamese pronoun is chúng ta. I will discuss this semantic use later in the chapter.

  10. 10.

    In Thompson’s thesis, class is not a fixed category that is structurally determined by productive relations. It is always in the making and manifests ‘when some men […] feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men’ (1963: 269).

  11. 11.

    The people referred to here are different from informal strike leaders who mobilise workers around certain complaints and sometimes may be asked to get involved in the process of strike resolution (Pringle and Clarke 2011).

  12. 12.

    Đồng Nai Labour Federation (2014), Report on the work of taking care of material and mental lives for workers and the situation of strikes and work stoppages.

  13. 13.

    The Vietnamese word is nghe, which means listening or hearing, and in some context also means following someone’s words or advice.

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

    Tu Phuong Nguyen

Authors
  1. Tu Phuong Nguyen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Nguyen, T.P. (2019). ‘Defending Their Rights and Interests’: Bringing Law to Workers’ Residences. In: Workplace Justice. Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3116-9_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation