New employee benefits scheme to assist union members
New employee benefits scheme to assist union members
Lao ICare Sole., Ltd. and Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU) signed an Employment Benefits Programme agreement on Friday which enables its members in all sectors to access the programme and services.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Director General of the LFTU's Labour Protection Department, Mr Ounkham Boungnaseng, and the company's CEO, Ms Toumkham Phoungmachan.
Ms Toumkham explained that ICare Benefits brings services under the four pillars of comfort living, healthy living, smart living, and prosperous living to a wide cross-section of the workforce.
“We can create innovative social security benefits, new financial solutions for low income workers to access finance and credit scoring, and consumer protection schemes to help the employees have better products and service quality,” she added.
The programme originated in Vietnam and is currently operating in Laos under the official name of Lao ICare Sole., Ltd. It also operates in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and India. Ms Tounkham said Laos was the first country outside Vietnam to join the programme.
So far in Laos the company has contracted over 10,000 employees working for 54 different companies and organisations such as Dao Heuang Group, Khop Chai Deu Restaurant, Datacom, Scavi Garment, Alpi Lao, Diep Vu Garment, Great Laos, Santei, KB Yaki, and State Security Enterprise.
Last Friday the Lao Federation of Trade Unions joined the team. “ICare hopes to grow even more in Laos in the future,” Ms Toumkham added.
“Over 700 corporations have joined our programme such as Nike, Samsung, Panasonic, Yamaha, Honda, Scavi Vietnam, Vinatex, and other well known companies ,with more than one million employees under our programme,” she said.
She said the company expected to expand into over 50 countries in Asia and other continents by 2019.
By partnering with the federation, she believed the programme's strengths could be further utilised to mitigate the difficulties faced by workers on a limited income. This, in turn, would reduce economic loss and suffering.
Ms Toumkham believed that through the MoU, collaboration could also be further advanced in terms of information sharing and management, key elements of mutual benefit.
ICare only began operations in January this year but has already set up centres in Vientiane and Savannakhet.
