(IPS) feature

People all over Vietnam are starting to prepare for the upcoming Tet (New Year) celebrations next month, but Nguyen Tran and his brother Dung are unsure if they will be able to welcome the year their family back in their hometown.

The Nguyen brothers left their village in the coastal province of Quang Nam three years ago to seek jobs here in Ho Chi Minh City. This is now their second year at a dye house in Tan Binh district, where their hard work and skilled hands have won praise from their employer.

But the brothers have not received a consequent boost in their wages, which their boss customarily gives only at the end of the year, as a lump sum. That has wreaked havoc on the brothers' plan to go home for Tet, since they would have had to buy their tickets at least two months in advance.

Tran and Dung, however, cannot complain, even if they know they are getting less than other workers. After all, they are migrant workers who have yet to secure the necessary papers that will not only make their stay in this city legal, but will also assure them of proper wages and access to social services.

Authorities say there are thousands of rural people who flock to the cities looking for work each year. In order to be employed in state or foreign-invested companies, however, these migrant have to first secure residence certificates from local authorities.

Vulnerable to exploitation

The problem is that these officials want to maintain their population within certain limits, and thus make it hard for the migrants to get the needed documents.

Such circumstances only mean that many migrant workers in the cities are stuck with being illegal, and are therefore vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.

The grumbles among the workers are getting louder, but most admit to being clueless on how to get authorities to take a look at their plight.

It has not helped that many of the migrant workers are lacking in education and technical skills.

A 2000 survey by the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA), for instance, revealed that most migrants have low educational levels. According to the survey, which covered some 400,000 migrant workers, about 39.4 percent reached only primary school or are illiterate and just 4.8 percent had technical or college certificates.

At least Le Thi Hieu already had experience as a tailor when she left her village in the central province of Thua Thien Hue four years ago and came to Ho Chi Minh City.

Although she had no residence certificate that could help her land a job in the big garment factories, she was still able to find work at a small private clothing enterprise after some time.

To be sure though, her salary is less than half of those earned by workers in the major factories, and her workhours are not regulated by law.

Hieu says she gets about 20,000 dong (some US$1.30) for a back-breaking work day of 16 hours. Her feet have also become swollen from long hours of sitting.

''From day till night, I sit here by the side of sewing machine,'' she says. ''After one year my body is showing the strain. This is the price I have to pay for staying in the big city.''

But she says there are few alternatives for her, and comforts herself with the thought that the little she earns still helps support her family back home.

Hieu also knows that other migrant workers are even less fortunate, especially those who are unskilled.

Vicious circle

Minh, Hoa, Long and Thang, for example, knew only how to work in the fields before they came to Ho Chi Minh looking for other ways to earn a living. The young men, all of them still in their 20s, spent several weeks jobless before they wound up working at a housing project.

''As I am neither a bricklayer nor carpenter, the contractor told me to be a helper at 10,000 dong (about US$1) a day,'' Minh says.

That pay is just half that of a helper who is a legal resident of this city. To make matters worse, Minh and his friends have been paid only half of what was promised them — after some 300 days of hard labour. The contractor says that he had not yet been paid by the project's developers.

But Minh says, ''He lies. He has already pocketed the money but preferred to lend it to others so as to earn some interest rather than pay his workers.'' Minh also says that when the poor workers dared to ask the contractor to pay them what they were owed, they were fired.

Minh and his friends have complained to the local authorities about how they have been treated. But so far, the officials have said they can do nothing because Minh and company had no signed contracts with their employer.

Minh points out, ''How could we (have that), being migrant workers. This is a vicious circle. Because we have no residence permit, we could not sign a labour contract. And because we have no labour contract, we could never get a residence permit.''

He grouses, ''There should be some regulations to protect migrant workers from exploitative employers.''

Conditions may get worse

But conditions may get only worse for migrant workers as more people from the impoverished countryside try their luck in the cities.

According to Ho Chi Minh City's DoLISA, the city's population has officially doubled from 3.3 million in 1976 to nearly 6.6 million in 2000. During the 1990s, Ho Chi Minh City's population surged by an average 120,000 new residents per year.

Observers say with a surplus of migrants desperate for jobs, many employers feel emboldened to underpay and exploit their workers.

Small garment shops, such as that employing Hieu, have gained notoriety for taking advantage of their workers, most of whom actually consider themselves lucky to find a job at all.

''The boss forces us to work overtime but never compensates us properly for that,'' Hieu says, adding that anyone who makes a mistake of asking for overtime compensation gets sacked on the spot. She says, sadly, ''We are so scared to lose our jobs.''