Employees' interests affected

By the end of December 2020, the province’s total social, health and unemployment insurance debt was more than 244 billion VND (10.5 million USD), accounting for 3.86 percent. In which, social insurance debt was 176.2 billion VND and 56.6 billion VND was health insurance debt.

The staff of Viet Yen district’s social insurance agency reviews enterprises that have not yet paid social insurance premiums.

According to the provincial social insurance agency, over the past 4 months, DaYoung Vina Co., Ltd in Van Trung Industrial Park (Viet Yen district) has not paid social, health and unemployment insurance premiums for employees with a total amount of more than 1.5 billion VND (64,620 USD). The company, specializing in manufacturing and assembling electronic components, has 300 employees. Because of its delayed payment of social, health and unemployment insurance premiums, many workers have not yet received maternity benefits, medical examination and treatment with health insurance.

In 2017, Fine Land Apparel Vietnam Co., Ltd in Dinh Tram Industrial Park (Viet Yen district) was sanctioned for violating the compliance with the social insurance policy for employees, but then the unit still had outstanding debts of more than 7.8 billion VND (336,000 USD) in social, health and unemployment insurance premiums of 297 employees in the past 20 months.

This is not a new problem, but there are no signs of stopping. It continues to increase not only in Bac Giang but also throughout the country, especially in the current context that many companies are affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The main reason is that businesses do not pay attention to the interests of workers, often use as a pretext unstable production and unsalability to delay paying insurance premiums for employees. Meanwhile, a number of grassroots-level trade unions have not been boldly fighting to protect the interests of workers. Even employees have not bravely claimed their own legitimate rights and interests.

In the province, a number of businesses that made losses and went bankrupt, did not pay insurance premiums for workers, leading to large, long-lasting and difficult-to-recover debts.

Actively taking measures to reduce outstanding debts

To deal with this fact, over the past time, the provincial social insurance agency has actively controlled debts and reduced outstanding debts. It has instructed its district chapters to strictly comply with the regulations on monthly insurance premium collection management and inform the status of payment and late payment of enterprises to the employees.

Workers at Fine Land Apparel Vietnam Co., Ltd, which has prolonged insurance premium debts.

Sharing difficulties with businesses, in 2020, the provincial social insurance agency suspended payment to the retirement and survivorship funds until the end of December 2020 for 10 enterprises affected by the Covid-19 epidemic. It has inspected 64 businesses, detecting that employers have not paid or paid inadequate premiums for 223 employees, as well as paid incorrect amounts for 364 cases, thus collecting more than 2.1 billion VND (90,660 USD) to pay social insurance for employees. Every quarter, the agency publicizes the list of enterprises with prolonged premium payment delays on Bac Giang Newspaper and the provincial Radio and Television Station.

Than Duc Lai, Director of provincial social insurance agency, said: "In the coming time, the agency will strengthen the control to prevent enterprises from taking the pandemic as a reason for late payment of insurance premiums. It will propose the provincial Party Committee and People's Committee drastically direct departments, agencies and sectors to coordinate with the social insurance agencies to collect insurance debts, with a view to reducing the debt ratio of businesses to less than 1.7 percent. The agency will cooperate with the People's Committees of districts and city to enhance inspection of compliance with the law on insurance in enterprises. Its functional divisions will regularly review and classify units and enterprises with outstanding debts, analyze the causes, and continuously hasten debt collection. If any unit that is operating well seeks ways to escape payment, the provincial social insurance agency will conduct a surprise inspection to serve as a basis for proposing punishments for criminal violations in accordance with the Law on Social Insurance".

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Duy Minh