The National Assembly’s Committee for Social Affairs (CSA) and the Friedrich Ebert Stigtung (FES) Institute jointly held a seminar for domestic and foreign experts to contribute ideas to the amended Labour Law, in Hanoi on March 31.

According to CSA Vice Chairman Dang Nhu Loi, under the 2010 law-making programme, a draft amended labour law will be submitted to the NA in its session in May this year.

The FES Institute Chief Representative, Joerg Bergsterman, said Vietnam ’s Labour Law, adopted in 1994, should be revised to catch up with the modernisation and industrialisation process in the country. He added his institute will support the building of the law in the direction of protecting the rights of labourers.

The draft law should focus on issue related to labour relations as the existing law failed to deal comprehensively with those issues, resulting in strikes, said Deputy Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) Pham Minh Huan.

Regarding the outline of the draft law, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Daeubler, an expert from Germany , the draft law should put issues on jobs and labour contracts before other issues, including salary, relaxing conditions and professional skill training./.