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Strikes are becoming more frequent in communist Vietnam, where consumer prices have risen more than 16 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2008.
-- PHOTO: AP
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HANOI - MORE than 15,000 workers at a Vietnam factory that makes shoes for Nike on Wednesday ended a two-day strike launched to seek better pay, a union official said.
The workers, who went on strike on Monday at the Ching Luh factory in southern Long An province to demand a monthly pay rise of 200,000 dong (S$17.16), agreed to management's offer of 100,000 dong a month, the official said.
The union official, Nguyen Thi Dung, said the workers at the Taiwanese-owned factory needed the extra money 'because of the increase in prices... which has hit people hard recently'.
Strikes are becoming more frequent in communist Vietnam, where consumer prices have risen more than 16 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2008, including for essentials such as the staple food rice.
Nike said the workers at the Ching Luh plant were already being paid more than the government-set minimum wage of between 800,000 dong and one million dong per month for foreign companies in Vietnam.
'We recognise the impact that rising inflation has had on the people of Vietnam,' Nike spokesman Chris Helzer said on Tuesday.
'We strongly support the workers' rights to freedom of association and hope the situation will be resolved quickly and amicably.'
The US sportswear giant said it works with 50 different factories in the country, where about a third of its shoes are produced.
In December, 10,000 workers walked off the job at another Vietnamese plant where goods are made for Nike. -- AFP
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