By Min Ni Kyaw - Mar 14, 2025

The management of Sunrise Myanmar Fashion Garment Factory stated that employees must work three substitute days in exchange for the five government-designated public holidays announced by the military council, according to workers. These public holidays were set from March 12 to March 16.

“No one asked whether we agreed to it or not. They just said there are five holidays, so we must compensate with three working days. They didn’t explain anything. Will the factory be sued if they don’t close? They don’t consider for the workers at all. We are losing our overtime pay because of these substituted workdays,” said a factory worker.

One of the substitute workdays has been scheduled for a regular working day, which is Saturday, March 15. Additionally, workers also reported that two other substitute workdays for the government holidays have been assigned to the upcoming Saturdays, March 22 and March 29.

According to labour laws, the standard working hours are set at 44 hours per week. Any work exceeding this limit within a six-day workweek is considered overtime. This means that the additional Saturday work hours beyond the 44-hour limit should be classified as overtime.

“The manager even told us that we can go and complain anywhere we want if we don’t agree. They decided to close because they wanted to, not because we asked for it. We never requested a closure. We should have been asked to sign an agreement if they want to assign substitute workdays. But now, they didn’t even ask us to sign anything. We weren’t even informed which days we had to compensate for,” workers said.

Sunrise Myanmar Fashion Garment Factory is a Chinese national-owned factory located in Kyauk Sein Road, Thadukan Industrial Zone 4. Shwe Pyi Thar Township, Yangon. The factory employs more than 1,000 workers.