Labour research

Winners named for labour research contest

The competition helps Viet Nam’s academic community improve research capacity on labour issues with a focus on industrial relations.

News | 28 March 2019
HANOI (ILO NEWS) – Five winners have been annnounced for best research submissions in a contest organized by ILO and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) to promote research capacity on labour issues, particularly in industrial relations.

The top prize, worth VND30 million (US$1,300), was granted to Nguyen Phuong Tu from Griffith University, Australia for her research in “Labour Law and gender discrimination at the workplace in Viet Nam – A preliminary study of garment and footwear sectors in Dong Nai Province”. Her study was highly recognized for portraying a clearer picture of gender discrimination and linking between awareness and actions that cause gender discrimination in the workplace.

Two second prizes, worth VND20 million ($870) each, were awarded to Vu Van Thinh and the research team from Viet Nam University of Commerce and Pham Thi Thuy Tien and the research team from HCM City-based Hoa Sen University. Thinh’s research focuses on participation in trade unions of Vietnamese workers while Tien’s work digs into the connection between gender discrimination and workers’ mental health and job satisfaction.

Honorable mentions were given to research works from Pham Thu Lan of Institute for Workers and Trade Unions on the impact of collective bargaining on wages and working conditions in Viet Nam and the Department of Industrial Relations, Ton Duc Thang University, HCM City on the impact of collective bargaining on wages and working conditions of the city’s enterprises.

Director of MOLISA’s Institute of Labour Sciences and Social Affairs, Dao Quang Vinh, noted that Viet Nam needs to extend the network of researchers on labour, providing incentives for them to conduct valuable labour studies, which can contribute to the country’s sustainable development.

Kicked off in April 2018, the contest received a total of 24 proposals from across the country.

The initiative aimed to support Vietnamese researchers and academic institutions with interests in measuring and reflecting the dynamic changes of industrial relations through their research lens while acknowledging their creative empirical research proposals on various aspects of industrial relations towards potential policy impacts.

“We commit to continuing our support to the Vietnamese labour researchers”, said ILO Viet Nam Director, Chang-Hee Lee. The ILO will help the winners of the competition to have their works published in academic journals and consider co-organizing future labour research contests to keep enhancing empirical research quality in labour areas in Viet Nam.

The labour research contest is an initiative of ILO’s New Industrial Relations Framework project funded by the Canadian Government.