Persist on litigating enterprises which attempt to avoid social insurance

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Beside some traders paying social insurance, many still avoid their obligation. Photo: Phuc Quan

Complaining

The statistics of Viet Nam Social Security show that by October 31, 2016, the total number of debts in the fields of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance of cities and provinces has reached 14,237 billion vnd, making up 6.5% of the collection plan, increasing by 0.2% compared to the same period of the previous year. Mr. Nguyen Tri Dai, Director of the Social Insurance Collection Department of Viet Nam Social Security shared that the insurance debts resulted from economic difficulties, employers’ poor compliance with the legislation and awareness of social insurance agencies at all levels. Moreover, several directors of provincial social insurance agencies did not drastically accelerate insurance collection and debt retrieving.

"Particularly, An Giang Social Insurance did not collect the amount of 66 billion vnd of social insurances of more than 60,000 beneficiaries from January 2015 to September 2016” added Mr. Nguyen Tri Dai.

Representatives from Ho Chi Minh City shared that debts in the fields of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance were getting more and more complicated because of 60,000 operating enterprises of which there were 35,000 in social insurance debt. The amount of debt has totaled 2,308 billion vnd, accounting for 5.29% so far. Over 14,000 enterprises have been in debt for over 3 months with the entire amount of 996 billion vnd. Although the social insurance debts are alarming, causing huge losses for employees, as Mr. Mai Duc Chinh, Deputy Director General of Viet Nam Social Security informed, there have not been many dossiers of enterprises being sued; social insurance agencies have kept silent. Especially, despite the fact that the Law on Social Insurance 2014 came into force on January 1^st, 2016 officially allowed Labor Unions to take enterprises in social insurance debt to court, provincial labor unions have not been proactive in coordination with social insurance agencies to take legal proceedings against the enterprises.

Sharing about the real situations, Mr. Luong Anh Tuan, Director of the Legal Department under Vietnam Social Security said that in the light of the current regulations of labor related cases, employees shall give authorization to local labor unions but the organizations dare not raise their voices to protect rights and legal benefits of employees because they themselves depend on employers.

Hoa Binh Province Labour Union said that social insurance debtors were mostly enterprises in difficulties. Therefore, it was impossible to retrieve debts. In addition, the question of what agency would shoulder the costs of civil proceedings, producing dossiers, collecting evidence…for suing was taken into consideration.

Tackle the obstacles

In order to minimize social insurance debts and bring the debtors to the court, Mr. Tran Dinh Lieu, Deputy Director of Viet Nam Social Security confirmed that units should urgently perform suing of enterprises in debts. During the process of performance, obstacles should be tackled.

Besides, suffering pressure in investment attraction, some local authorities do not allow the proceedings. Thus, there have been many debts while no enterprises are taken to court. “If provincial authorities do not conduct the litigating, the central authority would interfere. This matter is not too difficult to be solved. This could be proved by the trips of officials from the headquarters. They supervised three provinces and whenever they came, debts were handled. So, retrieving social insurance debts is not so hard. The reason for the delay is the fact that localities are so subjective and do not perform checking. Therefore, provincial insurance agencies are responsible for retrieving debts in the coming time” stressed Mr. Tran Dinh Lieu.

Mr. Mai Van Chinh requested 16 local social insurance agencies which had not signed coordination regulations with labor unions to urgently conduct the signing in November 2016 for operations in the near future.

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The Deputy Director General of Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor asked provincial labor unions to focus on enterprises of financial capacity when they conduct suing. Local labor unions should be proactive to forward litigating dossiers to the people’s courts at provincial and district levels. In case the courts do not receive and settle the dossiers, they shall produce documents showing reasons. If localities meet difficulties, they should report to the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor to coordinate with related agencies for solutions or forward appeals to the Supreme People’s Court.

According to representatives from Ho Chi Minh City social insurance agency, to urge the retrieving of social insurance debts, the agency has issued 800 documents to remind enterprises and nearly 400 decisions of inspection. However, the number of staff of competency to lead the inspection delegations is small (04 staff). So, he proposed to increase the number of delegation heads, which would enable to establish more delegations and promote social insurance payment by enterprises.