By Min Ni Kyaw - Jul 29, 2024
Dear relevant persons,
We are workers from ADK/ JW garment factory which located at Zay Kabar Compound, Mingalardone Township.
We want to inform about the salary gap and excessive overtimes.
We are not seamstresses but workers from other departments.
There is a massive gap of salary between us and seamstresses. Some of them get paid more than 5 lakhs or nearly 6 lakhs kyats.
Our salary was lower then 3.5 lakhs for the last month (June). It’s acceptable for gap around 50,000 kyats but for now the gap is nearly double.
Workers from other factory get paid more than 4 lakhs although they work only until 6:30 p.m.
We got 30,000 kyats pay raise in this month after we protested. But the all super scolded us for that because workers protests leaded to the cut of the supervisors’ salaries.
The helpers from production lines get paid the same with us. We only get paid little after working so much. The working hours is until 6:30 including overtime but we have to work until 7:30 p.m. once in two days. The line workers can go back home but helpers left. WE work until 11:00 – 12:00 p.m. We don’t get enough sleep. We usually buys meal to eat at the factory as we don’t have time to go back home and prepare for. So, our wages aren’t matters after working tiredly. There is only two days off in the factory in four Sundays.
Our daily wages is 5,600 kyats and the overtime fee is 1,500 kyats. The line workers get paid 6,000 kyats and the overtime fees 1,600 kyats per hour. Other factories get paid 7,300 or 6,500 kyats. The factory doesn’t raise the daily wages but only some amounts in other benefits. But we have to work overtime after those promotions unless the salary will be too low.
Those who don’t work overtime are scolded and summoned to the office. Finishing department workers treated worse. They are working until the dawn without day off.
The stuffs from office verbally assault us when we complaint about the salary gap between us and seamstresses.
They said that we will be cut if we don’t work overtime on Sundays. We can’t even miss an overtime by not taking the overtime fees.
We work on Sunday in last week although there were 3 day offs. They said we would be cut if we don’t. 30,000 – 50,000 kyats are cut for taking a leave for health issues. We sleep in the factory unproperly if we have to work all night overtimes and we are forced to give false answers to inspectors.
The worker who told the truth are fired.
The newbie workers get paid only 4,800 kyats per day. The 1,000 kyats subsidy is given only after 3 months. There are too much violations upon the workers.
#Information (In the salary slip of ADK/JW factory obtained by Myanmar Labor News, it is said that the daily wages is 5,600 kyats. Other benefits are also classified. The current minimum wage is 4,800 kyats for an 8-hour working day, and according to the instruction to pay 1,000 kyats subsidy at the end of last year, workers should receive 5,800 kyats per day minimum. According to the latest information, the ADK/JW factory is owned by Chinese nationals and employs around 5,000 workers. The factory manufactures Hang Ten and ZARA brands. More than 2,000 workers collectively demand in July 2022 for violating their rights, such as asking for excessive fabric outputs and not having legal rights in the workplace.
Photo- Workers protesting at the ADK/JW factory in 2022
