Ensuring the rights of female workers under Vietnamese labor law

unemployment for female workers, gender equity for policies related to labor relations (salaries, wages, social insurance, working conditions, etc.), social policies to support female workers so that they can combine harmoniously between working life and family life, integrate into the community for mutual development;

Policies for female workers must be reviewed, supplemented and revised synchronously in the state's labor policy system. That policy system must be increasingly improved to suit the new conditions arising in the economy, politics, culture and society of each period to adjust policies to be closer to reality, ensuring high feasibility of policies, especially the development and fluctuations of the labor market, supply and demand relations and labor prices in that market. In the current labor policy system (including policies for female workers), there are outdated policies that are no longer suitable for new conditions, requiring the addition of new policies and regimes to meet the requirements of the new situation;

- In the process of supplementary research and policy amendments, it is necessary to always consider the perspective of meeting gender requirements. Those policies must always aim to ensure the equality of female workers with men in reality in all labor relations; must gradually remove obstacles and promote the potential of female workers, in order to continue to unleash the creative labor potential of women. In particular, it is necessary to have the right attitude in labor policy relations. The most important issue is that all policies must direct and create maximum conditions and opportunities for female workers to participate in economic and social development and enjoy the fruits of their labor. In particular, it is necessary to ensure that female workers improve their competitiveness in the labor market, thereby having more opportunities to find jobs and increase income, ensuring their lives. Policies that prioritize and favor women must follow a development perspective so as not to cause negative consequences that are harmful to female workers, such as losing job opportunities for women due to increased production costs in enterprises, leading to employers not wanting to hire them. Gender mainstreaming must be considered in all labor policies. However, it is necessary to pay special attention to the characteristics of female workers, which are not a homogeneous group (in terms of occupation, field of activity, geographical area, level of education, etc.).

personal capacity, family circumstances, job search environment conditions, etc.) to determine different specific policies and regimes;

- Policies for female workers, from a gender-responsive perspective, should not stop at policy ideas alone. The policy may be very good and excellent, but it does not have a direction for action and concretization to the maximum extent of policy ideas and views. The higher the level of institutionalization and the more detailed the concretization, the more beneficial it will be for women because of its clarity in application and implementation. This perspective and orientation is very important to help policy makers when reviewing the current policy system for female workers, so that there should be a specific plan and implementation program;

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- The viewpoints and approaches when researching, reviewing to supplement and amend policies for female workers must always be thoroughly understood by policy makers in advance.

The above oriented viewpoints are a unified, organically related entity, helping us have a systematic, comprehensive and dialectical perspective to study and review all policies for female workers. However, this is a very complicated task, which must be carried out step by step, with priority and key points.

Firstly, when promulgating, amending or supplementing a legal regulation for female workers, that regulation must accurately reflect objective reality, neither lower nor higher than the level of economic and social development, and be consistent with the level of awareness and aspirations of female workers. At the same time, this promulgation, amendment or supplement must also be consistent with the policies and guidelines of our Party and State. Therefore, it is necessary to overcome the unreasonable points in the legal regulations of our country for female workers so that these regulations can be effectively applied in practice because many regulations are still general and not specific, which can easily lead to difficulties in implementation in practice. As the weaker sex when participating in labor relations, female workers are always given special attention by the law with rights appropriate to their unique characteristics in all areas such as: employment, health, income... The law has created extremely favorable conditions for female workers to ensure their legitimate rights, thereby being able to take care of their lives as well as complete their work well. Many

The policy was issued, implemented by the state and achieved very encouraging results, creating conditions for female workers. However, an event always has two sides to it, besides the progressive points that the law has been and is implementing well, it also reveals certain limitations, lack of feasibility... this is inevitable in the law of social development, development to perfect shortcomings, to overcome and develop more comprehensively.

Second, when perfecting the law on protecting the rights of female workers, it is necessary to put it in a reasonable correlation with the rights and interests of employers and avoid discrimination against female workers to ensure maximum effectiveness in protecting female workers, while harmoniously resolving the relationship between interests and social progress.

In labor relations, employers and female employees are two opposing entities but have a close relationship to each other's existence and development. Therefore, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of employers is also a reasonable way to solve the problem of interests. If we only focus on protecting female employees and forget the interests of employers, labor relations will hardly develop stably and sustainably because employers only see the burden of using female employees. Thus, protecting female employees is necessary, but the appropriate level of protection needs to be considered carefully because if the protection is excessive, it will not only be ineffective but also put female employees in a difficult situation.

On the other hand, due to the specific characteristics of gender, it is necessary to have appropriate preferential regulations to protect female workers. However, these incentives also need to be at a reasonable level because if there are too many priorities and incentives, it will unintentionally lead to discrimination against female workers, making it more difficult for them to participate in labor relations.

Third, regulations on protecting the rights of female workers need to be widely accessible and consistent with international labor law. International labor law is understood as the principles, orientations, and general norms of the ILO, the United Nations, the CEDAW Convention, etc. on working conditions, rights, obligations, and cooperation of relevant parties with member countries in the process of labor use, management, and impact on the labor market, which have been recognized and joined by many countries. As a member

As a member of the ILO, the United Nations... Vietnam has the responsibility to implement the regulations of this organization on protecting the rights of female workers. At the same time, the regulations of the labor law on female workers that our country has issued need to be amended and supplemented to comply with international labor standards, especially in the trend of economic integration and globalization, from which the rights and interests of female workers are most fully guaranteed.

3.2. Solutions to improve Vietnamese laws on female workers' rights and ensure implementation of laws on female workers' rights

3.2.1. Group of solutions to improve Vietnamese law on female workers' rights

The rights of female workers are one of the basic rights of our country's labor law. As a special subject, female workers are always given separate regulations by law that are suitable for their psychological characteristics to ensure their legitimate rights and interests. Through many amendments and supplements, the 2012 Labor Code is considered quite comprehensive, resolving the shortcomings of the 2006 Labor Code, through amendments and supplements, ensuring full rights for female workers. However, the implementation of the law also encounters difficulties. The provisions of the current labor law on protecting the rights of female workers are quite complete, but most of the provisions are still difficult to implement in practice because many provisions are still general, have no applicable sanctions, and are not suitable for the capacity of enterprises. Therefore, the improvement of legal provisions and the effective implementation of the law on protecting the rights of female workers are urgent requirements in every stage of development. To solve this problem, this thesis would like to propose the following recommendations:

* Regarding the amendment, supplementation and promulgation of documents : The State needs to promulgate documents explaining the regulations on protecting the rights of female workers as well as determining the legal responsibilities of the subjects in the 2012 Labor Code on the basis of harmoniously combining the interests of the following three subjects in the labor relationship: For employers, their main purpose when participating in labor relations is profit, so the problem for them is how to use labor to bring the highest economic efficiency. For female workers, due to gender-specific factors, they need to be given more incentives than male workers. For the State, the key issue is to solve employment.

for society and the physical and mental development of children. For example, Article 153 of the 2012 Labor Code stipulates the State's policy towards female workers as follows:

1. Ensure equal employment rights for female workers.

2. Encourage employers to create conditions for female workers to have regular jobs, widely apply flexible working schedules, part-time work, and assign work at home.

Or Clause 1, Article 154 of the 2012 Labor Code stipulates the obligation of employers to ensure fairness towards female employees in recruitment and employment, training, working hours, rest hours, wages, etc. These regulations are only general regulations, without specific guidance documents, leading to difficulty in determining the legal responsibilities of the subjects. Therefore, the State needs to review the provisions of the law to amend them specifically and have strict sanctions for violations.

* Regarding preferential capital policies and tax exemptions for enterprises employing female workers : The tax exemption and reduction policies and state capital incentives for enterprises have helped and compensated enterprises employing many female workers. However, these measures have not been really effective in practice. Currently, due to the increasing demand for capital loans of enterprises with female workers, the capital fund is not large and limited, so it cannot meet the business needs of enterprises. Although preferential capital measures are a State policy to protect the rights of female workers, they are the basis for determining the responsibility of employers - the direct employers of female workers, creating a financial burden on enterprises. Moreover, enterprises also have to spend to improve working conditions for female workers, and this source of expenditure is taken from the annual investment capital fund of the enterprise while other investments of the enterprise are also extremely urgent, so which side will enterprises choose to invest in? Reality has proven to be very unclear. Therefore, this regulation is not really suitable for the current economic conditions of our country as well as the financial capacity of each enterprise, especially in the current market economy with fierce competition. Should the State and enterprises coordinate to solve this problem, it is impossible to put this responsibility on only one side. Besides, the tax exemption and reduction procedures are still

complicated, enterprises using many female workers but have not enjoyed preferential policies, tax exemptions and reductions. Handling this issue is quite inadequate because there are no specific instructions on how much the exemption and reduction regime is; the calculation of tax exemption and reduction is complicated so enterprises do not implement it. Therefore, there should be specific and synchronous instructions, avoiding overlap, simplifying administrative procedures so that enterprises can grasp information, avoiding wasting time and costs of enterprises. For example, the exemption and reduction are calculated based on the number of female workers who have signed labor contracts, participated in social insurance... to facilitate enterprises to benefit, partly reducing the difficulties when employing many female workers.

* About working hours, rest hours

The separate regulation on menstrual leave should be removed and included in the necessary leave time during work according to Article 3 of Decree 45/2013/ND-CP dated May 10, 2013 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Labor Code on working hours, rest hours, and occupational safety and hygiene because currently the hygiene conditions of female workers have been improved a lot compared to before.

During the time of raising a child under 12 months old, female workers are entitled to 60 minutes of rest each day or are pregnant until the seventh month while doing heavy work and still receive full salary. This regulation is not really feasible due to the requirements of production line activities, product contracts or long distance travel conditions causing inconvenience to both female workers and business owners, so the 60 minutes of rest each day can be paid to female workers as overtime or 60 minutes per day can be accumulated into one day off in a week for female workers, thus ensuring both the rights of workers and employers, and ensuring the continuity of the production process.

The law needs to supplement regulations on the time off for female employees to take care of sick children in cases where the child is sick and needs long-term care and treatment. According to current law, the legal time allowed for female employees to take time off to take care of their children is 15 to 20 days depending on the age of the child, which is appropriate in reality. However, through the implementation process in life, the above time is too short for children with diseases that require long-term treatment such as: heart disease, tuberculosis,

Lungs…Moreover, the law also stipulates the types of leave for employees when they are sick, including: cases of common illness and cases of illnesses requiring long-term treatment. Therefore, it is thought that the regulation of leave time for the regime of taking care of sick children must be based on the condition of the child, in which cases of illnesses requiring long-term treatment must have a longer period of social insurance benefits than other cases of common illness.

According to the provisions of Article 111 of the 2012 Labor Code, people working in normal conditions have 12 days of annual leave, people working in heavy, toxic, and dangerous jobs have 14 days, and people working in especially heavy, toxic, and dangerous jobs have 16 days. Thus, this leave regime is applied to both male and female workers. However, as we know, female workers have more limitations than male workers: their health is weaker than men's, and on the other hand, they also have to fulfill their duties as mothers and wives... so they need more time to rest to reproduce their labor. Therefore, the annual leave of female workers should be increased accordingly as follows: Female workers working in normal conditions have 14 days of annual leave, female workers working in heavy, toxic, and dangerous jobs have 16 days, and female workers working in especially heavy, toxic, and dangerous jobs have 18 days.

* On the obligations of employers towards female employees

According to Clause 4, Article 154 of the 2012 Labor Code, employers have the obligation to: "Help and support the construction of nurseries, kindergartens or part of the cost of childcare and kindergarten for female employees ". This issue has not yet been realized because the law does not have specific legal documents. In reality, most public nurseries and kindergartens only accept children from 18 months to 24 months old, while female employees are only allowed 6 months of maternity leave. Therefore, if they continue to take leave after maternity leave, it will lead to no income or job loss. This causes female employees to have to send their children to private nurseries, causing psychological insecurity and pressure at work.

The regulation requiring employers to install milking rooms and milk storage rooms suitable to actual working conditions, the needs of female workers and the capabilities of employers should be abolished as prescribed in Decree No. 85/2015/ND-CP.

The Government dated October 1, 2015 details a number of articles of the Labor Code on female labor policies. If this regulation is applied in modern conditions, the installation of a milking room and breast milk storage is extremely progressive, demonstrating profound humanity, helping female workers both fulfill their motherhood and perform the function of labor reproduction, ensuring breastfeeding for the first six months. However, in reality, this regulation is not feasible because not all businesses can do this, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, businesses with few female workers who are breastfeeding. Or some businesses also install according to the regulations but only for show, not meeting the standards of necessary facilities, leading to the situation where the quality of milk is not properly preserved, affecting the health of young children. On the other hand, during the economic recession, this regulation becomes a burden for businesses. In addition, this installation depends on the actual conditions at the workplace, but what these conditions are, Decree 85/2015 has not yet regulated, whether employers are willing to invest in milking rooms and milk storage just to serve the needs of a few female workers. Therefore, this regulation is not feasible.

Clause 3, Article 154 of the 2012 Labor Code stipulates the responsibility of employers towards female employees: "Ensure there are enough shower rooms and suitable toilets at the workplace" . Compared to the previous regulations, the current law has regulated in a simpler way, not rigidly requiring 3 types of rooms (changing rooms, shower rooms, toilet rooms). And instead of 3 rooms as before, the 2012 Labor Code has reduced it to 2 rooms. In fact, is that regulation necessary, or is it necessary to have enough of those rooms in all places that employ female workers because it is thought that for toxic jobs that require detoxification and disinfection, there are separate regulations according to the standards of the Ministry of Health.

* About jobs in the list of prohibited jobs for female workers

Instead of banning the use of female workers in prohibited jobs, state agencies should research and issue specific guidelines on standard conditions for labor safety, toxic regimes, etc. at the workplace in this industry to ensure a better environment for workers, on the basis of

Ensuring the rights of female workers under Vietnamese labor law - 9

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