It was a weekend, and the 20-room boarding house in Tam Binh Ward of HCMC was bustling with laughter. For Tran Thanh Tuan, a garment worker renting a room there, it was a time to chat with his neighbors. The conversation, it turns out, drifted to the new regional minimum wage, set to be applied on January 1, 2026.
Tuan remembered that his company’s trade union had just introduced a new app, namely the “Virtual Assistant (AI) for Answering Questions on Union and Labor Law,” accessible at https://ai.congdoantphochiminh.org.vn. He pulled out his phone, opened the app, and typed in his query: “I want to know about the regional minimum wage that will be applied from January 1, 2026, in the HCMC area.” In seconds, a trove of relevant information popped up for him and his neighbors to look over.
“I’ve only ever used my phone for Zalo, Facebook, or just reading the news,” Tuan shared, clearly impressed. “This is the first time I’ve ever used a virtual assistant to ask about a problem I was having. The answers were so complete and easy to understand, right after I asked. For this kind of stuff, I used to have to find a union official.”
Seeing how clear the AI’s answer was, his roommate chimed in, asking Tuan to get help on a different labor law issue: the unilateral termination of an employment contract by a business. Just as before, the answer populated on Tuan’s screen almost immediately.
This “Virtual Assistant”" app was just widely rolled out by the HCMC Labor Federation to all its grassroots unions and members. The whole point, according to the federation, is to provide 24/7 support. A representative for the HCMC Labor Federation noted that with its ability to operate continuously, the virtual assistant ensures that union members and workers always receive timely support, even after hours, on weekends, or during holidays.
On the app, workers can reportedly get help on all sorts of issues related to union activities, labor laws, and social insurance. This includes maternity and sickness benefits, work-related accidents, retirement, death benefits, and even procedures for claiming unemployment insurance or ensuring occupational safety. The virtual assistant, it’s said, will also suggest templates for union applications, support requests, and report forms for grassroots unions.
To better support its members and officials, the Chau Pha Commune Labor Union (HCMC) has gone a step further, releasing its own suite of AI virtual assistants designed for office work, legal consultation, and personal matters.
Vice Chairman Nguyen Thanh Tho of the Chau Pha Commune Labor Union explained their suite of 18 virtual assistants reportedly built on Google’s Gemini platform. These include 7 for administrative support, 5 for quick legal consultation (covering the 2024 Law on Trade Union, Labor Code, etc.), and 6 for personal issues like psychological counseling, career advising, study support, and child-rearing.
“It all started from the idea of building free learning and consultation channels for workers,” Vice Chairman Tho said, allowing them to ask about work, family, raising kids. He called these the first steps in their digital transformation and noted they are also promoting the HCMC Labor Federation’s main “Virtual Assistant” app. The HCMC Labor Federation also launched an “Online Union Operations Handbook” app at the address of https://sotay.congdoantphochiminh.org.vn to support grassroots union officials.
Vice Chairman Pham Trong Nhan of the HCMC Labor Federation stated that the rollout of both the handbook and the AI assistant is a key solution in the city’s entire union system’s digital transformation program. The program, he said, “aims to modernize operational methods and enhance the capacity to serve members and workers.”
These are, it’s reported, two “central applications” in the 2025 digital transformation roadmap. They’re designed with one goal of comprehensively transforming union operation methods onto a digital platform. The vision, he concluded, is for every union official to have a smart assistant, and for every member and worker to be supported in a timely manner, anytime, anywhere.
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