By Hsu Latt phyu - Feb 03, 2024
The workers from the Sunrise Myanmar Fashion Garment factory which locates at Kyauk Sein Street, Thar Du Kan Industrial Zone 4, Shwe Pyi Thar Township Yangon said that no actions are taken although they reported about being forced to work overtime and not having safety measures in the factory.
The factory is a Chinese national owned factory which is manufacturing and exporting GLOBAL WORK, WOLLYTEC, CINEMA CLUB, HARE, LEPSIL,URBAL FUNCTION , SINCE 1930 UNITED ATHLA, FINO-OUT, LOWRYS FARM, AIRTHERMAL. WMB and HK WORKS LOND- N, GLACIER brands with more than 1,000 workers.
The workers said that there is no trade union and although the workplace coilation committee is formed, they are not unable to address the workers’ disputes.
The normal working hours are from 8:00 Am to 19:30 including 2 and a half hours of overtime but they had to work from 21:00 to 00:00 in January on the grounds of important orders and had to work 3 Sundays which are the only off days of the week.
“The manager said that he had submit to the corresponding departments about recircuiting overtime and also said it was approved. We had to work like this in the previous months too. Sometimes they call overtime to all the workers and sometimes with rotation. The overtimes are not called with the workers consents but those who are selected have to work mandatorily. The WCC bias to the employers’ decision more than the workers’ consents. Right now, the HR manager is firing the workers who complain in the workplace with various reasons. The workers took the damages and just leave as they aren’t dare to complain due to the current political situations. There are also rumors about forming a single factory from current two factory. I am not sure weather they worry about the damages or to prevent workers’ disputes in the factory, they immediately fire the workers who complain. The remaining are also pressurized and monitored by the security. At most they even made the workers’ to be want to resign themselves. Some actually did. There are too many pressures in the workplace. Some workers are fired in the machine-repairing department currently. There are also some who resign due to the pressures,” said a worker.
They also said they want the factory to improve the security measures which are too weak currently.
“The factory doesn’t have emergency exist. The whole route is sticked with the fabric buckets. No emergency siren too. The toilets are also not clean and the ones on the upstairs are not distinguished with genders, female and male have to use together. The officials do not come to inspect us although the news are oftenly uploaded. The manager said that he owns the departments so he wouldn’t care no matter how much we reported as he came from the background of those departments,” said the workers.
The workers said that they want to request to survey their consents upon calling the overtimes, to not pressurize and illegally fire and to provide safety measures.
