Training labourers

According to Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, AIC Director, the company has received several order forms for workers from the US. The labourers will work in welding workshops, cut grass or work on farms (picking oranges).

Vietnamese workers must be married, and aged between 20 and 40 to be eligible to be sent to the US. Those workers will get a salary of $5,000 at minimum. The expenses every labourer has to pay to go working in the US will depend on the salary level. The labourers will work in groups, in which there will be one or two people who can speak English and interpret for the whole group.

The labourers will sign one-year contracts and they will be able to return to Vietnam once a year. The employers will consider extending the labour contracts if the labourers work well. In some cases, good workers could be granted green cards (citizenship) and other privileges.

Both AIC and Viracimex are negotiating on the first contracts. In the immediate time, 8 welders will be sent, and then 40 gardeners. Now the gardeners are practising cutting grass at golf courses. It is expected that the first group of labourers will leave Vietnam for the US in early 2007, and many labourers will be sent to the US to work as nurses subsequently.

According to Dang Minh Suc, Director of Viracimex, the two labour export companies, together with the Vietnam General Consulate in San Francisco, have spent a lot of time taking surveys and preparing to send labourers to the US.

Prior to that, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs sent officials to San Francisco to survey the market and have working sessions with US partners. The ministry has reported good things about the market and the possibility of labour export companies sending labourers to the country.

“We must know the partners, they must be American, and we will not work through other third parties,” said Mr Suc, adding that the US laws set very complicated procedures on employing immigrant labourers. The biggest concern of the two labour export companies is that labourers may escape from their work places. “If Vietnamese labourers escape, the US side may stop receiving Vietnamese workers,” Mr Suc said. In the past, several Asian countries suffered the same situation.

Ms Nhan from AIC and Mr Suc from Viracimex said that the two companies had thought of solutions to prevent labourers from escaping. They will have to pay a high security deposit – at $15,000.

The Le Vinh