The workers walked off the job Friday from the Green River Wood and Lumber company in Binh Duong province near the industrial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.

“Workers who have been with the company for two to three years demanded a raise of their basic monthly salary which is now 790,000 dong (US$50),” said provincial labor arbitration official Bui Quang Trong.

Trong said the company and workers had reached an agreement and that 500 staff had returned to work Monday, while a company source who refused to be named said no staff had shown up at the plant on Monday.

Communist-ruled Vietnam — an economically booming country with a large pool of cheap labor among its 84 million people — has emerged as a major manufacturing hub and exporter of textiles, footwear and electronics.

The strike was the latest in the industrial south in recent weeks, with thousands of workers also downing tools at a Japanese-owned engine plant, a Taiwanese electronics company and a South Korean-owned garment factory.

Last year, a major wave of strikes hit foreign-owned companies across southern Vietnam, with tens of thousands of workers demanding higher pay.

Activists of the banned United Worker-Farmers Organization, a group which has demanded the right to form independent labor unions, says police have arrested several of its members in recent months.

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