"The European Commission should reconsider the imposition of the anti-dumping duty and ensure that Vietnamese footwear workers are not the ones paying the price of the mounting trade dispute," said ActionAid.

EU duties being doubled to 8.4 percent Friday could put up to 500,000 workers and many employees in related industries out of work, said ActionAid and the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association.

The trade group said orders fell rapidly in mid-2005 when the European Union started proceedings, accusing Vietnam of unfairly subsidising the sector, leading many shoe-makers to cut output and lay off workers.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has said duties were imposed on Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes in April because the governments and manufacturers there had been engaged in unfair trade practices.

Mandelson said Chinese and Vietnamese factories enjoyed state aid in the form of soft loans, tax breaks, low rents, fuzzy accounting and export incentives.

The duties are to be imposed gradually over five months and will rise to 19.4 percent for leather shoes from China and 16.8 percent for leather shoes from Vietnam. Children's shoes are not covered by the measures.

Vietnam has vowed to lobby for the duties to be lifted, insisting its footwear industry, one of the country's strongest export earners, had abided by free market principles.