By Min Ni Kyaw - Jul 21, 2024
Workers from Sheng Mei Garment factory which locates at War Ta Yar Industrial Zone said that they are being forced to work on public holidays and the factory is calling all-night overtimes.
“We had to work from Thursday (18th July) evening to 4:00 a.m. the next day. They only gives day off for the Martyrs’ Days. They call overtime on Full Moon Day of War So and tomorrow (July 21st) which is the Sunday holiday,” a worker said.
The workers suffer in wages as the factory gave them only 12,000 kyats for mid-night overtime which was agreed with 16,000 kyats before.
The factory called mid-night overtimes for three weeks long in June and it has been around 2 months that the workers are working overtime until 8:30 p.m.
Workers said they work overtime until 6:30 p.m. on Saturdays and until 4:30 p.m. on Sundays. They only gets one holiday in the whole month of June and it was during the pay week. The break time during overtime is only allowed for 10 minutes.
“We have to work continuously until 6:30 p.m. since the lunch time. We get break time for 10 minutes on the days we work until 8:30 p.m. to have a snack and scan finger prints. They told it is 15 minutes but its actually not,” said the workers.
The workers said that the factory is going to cut fabric bonus (ticket fee) and deny the monthly allowance of 30,000 kyats on the grounds that the daily wages will be raised.
“They said allowance will be cut and daily wages will be raised to 7,000 kyats per day. But its uncertain. They say its just submitted. And they say ticket fee will be raised to 30 % and cut if there is no orders. 10% have been cut currently. Nothing is stable in this factory. We don’t clearly know how much is the wages and what are they for,” said a worker.
It is also known that only seamstresses will get pay raise to 7,000 kyats but not the workers from other departments.
There is no raise but only new rules that workers are intimidated to sign a warning if they are not in accordance with those new rules. And they are also forced to sign a program that will cut their benefits.
“The program said that attendance bonus will be cut for taking more than 6 hours of gate pass a month. They told us to sign if we agree but we don’t. But 5 all supers and line supers forced us and intimidated that we will be cut weather we sign or not,” the workers said.
There is a workplace coordination committee in the factory but the representatives of the workers are managers of the factory so the committee can’t address the workers’ difficulties.
Sheng Mei Garment factory locates at Aung Chan Thar Street, War Ta Yar Industrial Zone, Yangon. According to the DICA’s data the factory is operating by foreign investments and hires around 800 workers.
