By Min Ni Kyaw - May 20, 2024
The workers of the Joc Myanmar Garment Factory say that their benefits and salaries are being cut. It is reported that the factory is owned by Chinese national and manufactures TR Style and TIGORA brand clothes.
“They cut daily wages, attendance bonus and grade fees for absent,” a worker said.
Even though they informed the leave they are labeled as absent and cut for daily wages and attendance bonus. The workers said that there is also a postponement of the bonus and benefits to which workers with a year of service are entitled.
The workers are forced to sign for 2 weeks overtime schedules without being asked for their consents.
“They force us to sign that we know there is overtime for 12 days (2 weeks). But they don’t ask our consent and it was worse before, they just inform about the overtime at 4:00 pm with a microphone,” said a worker.
The working hours of the Joc Myanmar factory are from 8 am to 6 pm (with 2 overtime hours), but the workers said that starting next week, they will be asked to work overtime until 7 pm and give half an hour of rest.
A worker said that the factory workers could not refuse overtime and were verbally abused and intimidated with employment.
"A worker can’t work overtime for 4 days if they refuse one. I was asked to go back at four o'clock in the evening. The Chinese experts told me. There are such intimidations. There are days when the workers can't work overtime due to their circumstances. Overtime can’t be void as salary is not enough. Sometimes, when we refuse to work overtime, the super just keeps verbally abuse," said one of the workers.
At the Joc Myanmar Garment Factory, lunch time is divided into two periods, and at 11:30 am and 12:00 pm, they have half an hour to eat lunch. But the workers said that from the time they returned to work, they had to work continuously until 6 p.m. without stopping.
“Those who eat at 11:00 am have to work at 12:00 and those eat at 12:00 have to work at 12:30. We have to work for more than 5 hours and around 6 hours as we finished the work at 6:00 pm,” they said.
In addition, the workers also said that they were suffered because the factory reduced the payment of their grade bonus (expert fees) in April, saying that they did not take into account public holidays.
"They reduced the amount of money we had to get by putting down the grades for April. Seems like they will even pay less on Sundays. For us, we suffered between 30,000 to 50,000 each. They should know that the cut money can be used for four or five days for the workers," a worker said.
One of the aggrieved workers also said that they have complained that their bonuses have been cut. Around 10 workers out of around 700 factory workers were summoned and examined and the head of the Factory and General Labor Law Inspection Department, U Tun Aung Kyaw, decided in a moment that the workers should not receive their regular bonuses.
Workers said that there is only workplace coordination committee that doesn’t address the workers’ presentations, instead of the trade union at the Joc Myanmar garment factory which locates at the U Myae Street, Shwe Pyi Thar Industrial Zone 4.
