More and more
women have recently chosen to work as assistant masons at high-rise
construction sites in big cities, ditching the traditional farm work. For a
better and stable income, they are willing to work hard and brave the risk that
comes with the job, especially for those that work on high floors.
On her first working day at a construction project in Ho Chi Minh City,
a disguised Tuoi Tre female journalist heard a loud cry and saw dozens of
workers rushing to help a woman lying unconscious in a pool of blood on the
ground.
It was an accident on the job. Lan, the woman’s name, was carrying some
iron bars on the first storey of the building when she slipped and fell to the
ground. Her leg got pierced through by a sharp iron stick.
Most women on construction sites are not hired as masons but assistant
bricklayers whose responsibilities involve mainly logistic and supplementary
duties, such as transporting bricks and iron bars, mixing concrete with cement
and sand, and setting up the steel framework.
Thuy, an experienced female worker with years of experience in the job,
said accidents are a common feature at any construction site. It is so common
that they no longer let the fear of getting hurt get to them. As it is, their
minds are preoccupied with a more sinister and threatening fear – fear of
losing the job and not having enough money to support their children and
family.
On the seventh floor of the construction project, 28 meters above the
ground, a group of women were preparing a steel framework for concreting. A
fainted-hearted newcomer may not be able to walk across a barely foot-wide
plank, connecting the stairways to the under-construction floor.
Na, a female worker at the site, recalled, “I was scared to death on my
first day of work, having to climb the open scaffolding at such a height. Guts
of winds roared past my ears. My heart beat as if it was going to fall out of
my chest.
But now, I already get used to it,” Na added.
Another female worker nearby, Thieu Oanh, 36, from Dong Thap Province,
chimed in with her story. “Once when I was installing a scaffold, an iron bar
fell down on my head. It was really death knocking on my door.”
“I was lucky I wore a helmet at the time.”
Thuy said she could not eat a single bite at dinner the day she
narrowly escaped an iron bar falling from the eighth floor to the ground,
missing her head by a split second.
“Sure, we’re afraid but just have to accept it. Otherwise, there’d be
no food for our children and family,” Thuy admitted.
After a meager lunch at 11:30, the workers retire to a quiet place at
the construction site to take a nap. Oanh took the Tuoi Tre journalist to the
second floor and tried to comfort her, “Try to get some rest. You will get used
to it all after a couple of days.”
Her face and hands flush with sun burn though she has worked as a
bricklayer for only three years.
Family burden
Oanh said she and her husband took out a loan of VND30 million
(US$1,400) to get into the duck-raising business four years ago. After a few
months, a bird epidemic swept through her village and wiped out her fortune.
They had to sell their house and rice farm but were still unable to pay
off their debt. The couple and their son migrated to Ho Chi Minh City to find
jobs at construction projects and try to save money to clear their debt.
“After two years, I paid off all debts and saved enough to buy a
motorbike. The work’s hard but I can save money for our kids to go to school.
Otherwise they have to quit school to take a job,” Oanh said.
Her typical work day begins at 7:00 and ends at 9:00 pm, or when work
requires, after midnight. On days when there is concrete pouring work, she
works overnight.
Oanh and her husband are not the only people working hard to give their
children a brighter future. A young girl with thick spectacles named Ngoc goes
to school in the morning and puts on the blue-collar uniform in the afternoon
and evening at the site to earn money to finish her university education.
“At 18, I came to Saigon to take a university entrance exam at the HCMC
Food Industry College and passed it. Then I began working here to have money to
pay for the tuition,” she told her story.
The Tuoi Tre journalist left the site after a week. Her little sum of
payment was accompanied by a sun burnt complexion, a pair of calloused hands
and warm feelings from her fellow women workers.
They never accept to give up.
TUOI TRE
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