Myo Thein
#Letter
I am from the Myanmar Ju Chuan shoe factory.
I have something I would like to ask.
Previously, workers who completed one full year of service received 68,000 Kyats on the 20th of the month following their one-year completion. This year, however, it is no longer the same. Management called a meeting and informed us of the changes.
In January 2026, workers who complete one year of service should receive a service bonus of 78,000 Kyats instead of the previous 68,000 Kyats. But now they say they will no longer pay the 78,000 Kyats service bonus and will give 10 days of service leave instead.
Those 10 days of service leave cannot be taken on days that are convenient for us. We are only allowed to take leave on the days designated by the factory. Even if we take those 10 days of service leave, they say our attendance bonus will be deducted.
20,000 Kyats will be deducted if we take leave within the first 15 days. Another 20,000 Kyats will be deducted if we take leave within the last 15 days. The entire attendance bonus will be deducted if we take leave in between. They also said that if we take the 10 days of service leave, they will pay only 10,500 Kyats per day, after deducting 1,000 Kyats for meals from the daily wage of 11,500 Kyats.
If we choose not to take the 10 days of service leave and continue working instead, they say it does not fall under labour law, so we will not receive daily wages for those days. When calculating everything, workers lose the 78,000 Kyats service bonus, the attendance bonus, the meal allowance, and face multiple deductions—resulting in losses of over 100,000 Kyats.
All of this leave is forced on workers without our consent. For overtime, the factory also discriminates between the old factory and the new factory. For example, if there are five lines, sometimes only workers from the old factory are required to work overtime while the new factory workers are not, and sometimes the opposite happens.
They also want to call overtime on public holidays. If many workers do not come, they summon and scold the line leaders.
I want to know whether these practices are legally valid. The factory threatens that if we complain to the labour office, action will be taken against us. They say they will investigate whoever files a complaint, which makes workers afraid, and as a result, workers’ losses and violations are not coming to light.
