Most Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) deputies have supported modifying the law to give workers the option of a lump-sum social insurance payment one year after their employment ends, instead of their having the fund suspended until their retirement.

According to an internal opinion poll, 87.45 percent of lawmakers agreed that Article 60 of the 2014 Law on Social Insurance should be revised so that laborers can have the option. The 2014 Law on Social Insurance was approved by the NA in November 2014 to revise the 2006 Law on Social Insurance and is slated to take effect on January 1, 2016. Pursuant to the article, which amended Article 55 of the 2006 Law on Social Insurance, the scope of employees eligible to receive a lump-sum social insurance allowance when they resign from work is narrowed.  Accordingly, only a limited number of people are entitled to such lump-sum payments, while other resigned employees must wait until they reach their retirement age (60 for men and 55 for women) to get or receive such lump sums.

The above poll result was announced by Nguyen Hanh Phuc, chairman of the NA and head of the secretariat of the ongoing ninth session of the 13th term. The poll was conducted after the NA failed to reach unanimity on two options raised for discussion at their meeting on May 27. One of the options was that laborers take a lump-sum social insurance payment upon their resignation, and the other option was for laborers to continue paying insurance premiums – voluntarily or through their new employers – and receive their social insurance payment upon retiring. At the end of the meeting, the NA’s deputy chairman, Uong Chu Luu, suggested a poll, and on June 4, 470 ballots were given to deputies. All the ballots were returned, and 411 of them agreed to give workers the option of a lump-sum social insurance payment one year after their employment ends. Based on this result, the NA Standing Committee has directed concerned agencies to draft a resolution on “implementing the policy to pay workers a lump-sum social insurance payment one year after their resignation,” as stated in Item c, Clause 1, Article 55 of the 2006 Law on Insurance. This article has been amended by the above Article 60 (of the 2014 Law on Insurance) that has recently faced strong responses from people, especially workers in several plants in Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring Binh Duong Province. On March 26, tens of thousands of workers at Pou Yuen Vietnam Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese-invested maker of sport shoes and garments for export in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, went on strike to protest the article. The strikers agreed to resume work on April 2 after competent agencies promised to consider their aspirations.

These workers argued that they likely could not continue to work until they retire, so if they quit their job in the near future they would have to wait for a long time to get such payment.

Some workers said they might quit their current job and start a business on their own in the future, so they wanted to get lump sums upon resignation as capital for their new career. Most strikers requested that the law give them the right to decide on either taking a lump-sum social insurance allowance or accumulating their periods of payment of social insurance in order to receive a pension when they retire.

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