My name is Quang. I am 42 years old. I have been doing this job 5 years already. I live in Hưng Yên. In my family, I have two siblings. I am the oldest. I have also started my own family with 2 children. My oldest child has already started working but my youngest child is in the 8th grade. My oldest child has finished the 12th grade, but when he tried to enter the university he failed the entrance exam so he decided to find a job like his father. He is a worker in a factory where they produce the cover for bags.
I am living here in Hanoi now, but every month I go back to my hometown. I work with a team constructing roads. My team has 5 people and we are like family. Actually, I am a hired worker but before I worked for some other job. My first job was working as a motorbike driver in Hanoi, but after I changed my job to become a construction worker because there were many motorbike drivers already. Right now, people have their own cars and use taxis more than motorbikes. Also, the streets are very dirty.
When you work with this job, there are many requirements. For example, the knowledge of measuring machines. We also need some certain knowledge about technical work. If our supervisor asks us, we must be able to answer. In reality I never formally learned about construction work, I only worked construction and gained the experience from my co-workers.
Every day our team of 5 people spend about 100-150 thousand VND. Each day, each person gets 100 thousand VND as a salary. In about one month everyone gets about 3 million VND and If I lived in the countryside, 3 million VND would be enough for the whole family. But in Hanoi this amount of money is not enough. My oldest son has already gone to work. In one month he gets about 1-2 million VND, which is enough to help his mother only. My salary only helps one child go to school. My wife only stays at home and works on the farm. My oldest child goes to work at Việt Hưng company at Như Quỳnh, Hưng Yên.
My daughter right now is in the 8th grade. After grade school, if she wants to take an university entrance exam or study anything then I will try my hardest to support her in her education. I want her to study and become a kindergarten teacher because it is an easy job since it will not make her tired. My son on the other hand could not pass the entrance exam for the university. But I never discouraged him to learn or study. Before I encouraged him to study about construction work because some of my relatives were in the construction business. But my son told me that he was sure that he would not pass the entrance exam for the university and that it would only waste money. Therefore he decided to go to work.
In one day I have to work 9 to 10 hours. I work from 5 am in the morning to 12 pm in the afternoon. Then, I have to work from 2 pm in the afternoon to 8 pm at night. On some days we work only until 7 pm. But one day we had to work 10 hours. We were sure it was 10 hours. It is a hard job.
We have to cook our own meals. In my job, I have to move a lot or relocate my work site. The longest place was half of a month. If not, I usually stay at a work or construction site for about 10 days. Since I move around a lot, I use a tent because the people who hire us do not provide us with room and board. My co-workers and I must care for ourselves.
I am a leader here, I have to manage the other people. My co-workers and I are relatives within a family. But I have to call some of my co-workers by the name “Uncle” because some are the younger brother of my father and mother. All the co-workers here are from Hưng Yên. All of our salaries for one month is the same. The leader has the same salary as the other co-workers because we all have to perform the same tasks, no one is better or superior than another.
I have decided to work at this job for only 2 more years because this job requires a lot of hard labor. In terms of construction work, no job is harder than my job. People over the age of 40 years old should retire. Right now I have the strength, but afterwards I will run out of strength to do the job. It is very hard. The lightest object to carry is about 10 kg. The heaviest object is about 450 kg. You see, we can only do this job for a certain time, but we cannot do this job for a long time. After this I only go to work on the field with my wife. My kids will have their own private lives. It will only be me and my wife. We will both find a job that is light and easy.
People contact me through cell phone to sign the construction contract. When we finish building this house the people of this house know my contact and they will give my contact to the other customers. Many of the house owners here demand many things from us, but as we work we become use to it. When the house owner understand us more, they see us as their relatives.
Basically, this job is quite easy. The main thing is that we have to focus on the job to avoid having a heavy object fall on our hands and legs. You see, if this kind of heavy object fall on our hands and legs we may get a serious accident. We are supposed to wear protective equipment, but wearing it is hot and uncomfortable. We did not buy the labor insurance because I decide to do this job for two to three years. The government requires us to buy the labor insurance for 10 years. It costs 5 million VND a year with our certain salary we cannot pay it so we decide to not buy it. If a situation arises, then the house owner will have to take the responsibility for us and there is no other solution.
Contributors: Mai Nguyen, Carol Nguyen, John Tran, Trương Minh Giang, Đỗ Thu Hương
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