The Third Sleeve: Emerging Labor Newspapers and the Response of the Labor Unions and the State to Workers’ Resistance in Vietnam

This article focuses on how the Vietnamese General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) responds to workers’ strikes. A complex, non-monolithic VGCL has developed a “third sleeve,” its dynamic pro-labor press, which plays strategic mediating roles among the state, labor unions, and management. The labor newspapers use their forums to champion workers’ rights and interests and empower labor unions that negotiate with state bureaucracies and management on the workers’ behalf. Simultaneously, the labor press must respond to policies and agendas of the VGCL and the state, which still hold to their power to monitor and control workers’ collective action.