Report Case study: workable practices in initiating and sustaining a labour rights movement in Vietnam

We launched our report Case study: workable practices in initiating and sustaining a labour rights movement in Vietnam in Bangkok at the SMF 2025 Regional Roundtable event. This report was based on interviews with four members of a grassroots labour rights organisation which Vietnam Rise had been working with for three years.

Using the members’ insights, the report sought to answer the following questions: 1) What are effective practices that workers can use to organise? 2) How do worker demographics (e.g., age, company structure, rural vs. urban) and needs affect their willingness and capacity to organise? 3) What internal barriers (e.g., lacking expertise in organisation) and external hindrances (e.g., security risk) do labour rights activists face when trying to organise?

The report details the interviewees’ entrance into labour rights activism, recruitment and rapport-building tactics with fellow workers. The members’ emphasised the need for transparency and mutual trust among other labour rights actors and challenges with movement expansion posed by a need to avoid authorities’ detection.

SMF provided an opportunity to present research and tactics from grassroots activism in Vietnam to an international audience.