By Min Ni Kyaw - Jul 15, 2024
Workers from New Plus garment factory which located at Thar Du Kan Industrial Zone said that they are being intimidated and forced to work overtime without their consents including the Sundays.
“We work overtime until 4:30 p.m. in Yesterday (July 14th) which is a Sunday day off. And the clerks forced us to sign that we work on our own consent. There are many people who suffer from tiredness and sickness among the workers. We can’t take their verbal abuses and there are many people who don’t want to work,” a worker explained.
The workers are working overtime without daring to refuse as they are afraid of being scolded in front of all by the supers. The workers said that the inequity of the distribution of the clothing bonus given by the factory between the super and garment workers in the led to overtime recruitment through intimidations and pressures.
“If the bonus is 4 lakhs, the super gets 2 and the workers get the other half. Workers only gets 10,000 or 20,000 kyats individually and there is a big gab. The super intimidates and pressures us to finish quickly as they get paid like that. They even said that we have to compensate if we can’t finish,” a worker said.
Pregnant workers and sick workers are also forced to work overtime the same with others. Workers are working continuously until 8:00 pm without a break time since the lunch time.
“It had been around 2 weeks that they called overtime until 8:00 p.m. They called us two Sundays in the last month and one Sunday in this month,” a worker said.
Workers who work until 7:00 p.m. have to wait until 8:00 p.m. to get transportation making their leisure time lesser. The factory give the overtime wages in two methods. The overtime wages until 6:30 p.m. are paid together with the salary and the other overtime are paid differently.
“The other overtime wages are paid once 3rd Day of the month before. But it is 4th, 5th or 6th for now. We get paid at 10th this month. This is a loss for us. We can’t use our wages in where we need,” workers said. The fabric bonus are also usually given on Monday but for now they are paid only after a week which makes them difficulties with their expenses.
“We need money if we sick. They don’t give the fabric bonus on the exact day and we don’t know when they will give. So, we have to take loan. Its not like we don’t have money but we don’t get paid,” they said.
Myanmar Labour News have learnt that the New Plus garment factory locates at Nwar Chan Bus-stop, Kyauk Sein Street, Thar Du Kan Industrial Zone 4 and owned by a Chinese national. The factory is operating with around 1,000 workers and manufacturing LKM brand apparels.
Myanmar Labor News reported that the factory is taking various methods to force workers to work overtime and on weekends.
Labor officials conducted an inspection of the factory on June 20th , after the news was reported but the workers said that there was no change in excessive overtime calls and weekend overtime calls. In addition, it is not known whether labor officials have taken any action.
