Early on Saturday morning, 7 September, 6 female workers at the Viet Nam Knitwear Company, which is located in Da Nang’s Hoa Khanh Industrial Park, suddenly fainted whilst they were working on the night shift.  This incident, which is thought to have been caused by overworking, has drawn a great deal of attention from local people.

A male worker, identified only as LH from Nghe An Province, said that whenever his employer, the Hong Kong Knitwear Company, receives an order, its workers are required to work up to 17 hours per day. 

Workers at a textiles and garments company in Hoa Khanh Industrial Park on strike about unfair labour policies

Currently, the use of overtime in this way has become common practice for employers in several of the local industrial parks.

Trinh Anh Hung, a lawyer from the Da Nang representative office of the Quang Nam Province Lawyers Delegation, said that although both a company and its employees enter into an overtime agreement, working 17 hours a day is unlawful.

Mr Hung explained that under the Vietnamese Labour Code on Working Time and Rest Time, overtime must never exceed 50% of the normal working hours each day.  In cases where the working time is prescribed on the basis of working weeks, the total of regular working time and overtime must not exceed 12 hours per day.  He emphasised that any agreements outside the labour contracts are unlawful, and that overtime violations must be strictly dealt with.