By Min Ni Kyaw - May 14, 2024
Workers from WHM Myanmar garment factory which locates at Hlaing Thar Yar Industrial Zone 2 said that it have been around a year since the factory is moving them to departments that they don’t have desire to work at.
“They hired us as seamstress after the interview but later they told us to work as helper. Most of us refuse but we have to work in the end,” a worker said.
There are 5 machine lines and 200 workforces operating in WHM Myanmar garment factory and manufacturing OVS brand apparels. Workers are suffering from emotional damages as they are humiliated when they moved to other departments although the salary remained the same.
“We felt that we are not skillful enough or we shirked, we also feel the way that they want us to resign,” the worker said.
Furthermore, the factory is cutting the benefits of workers who don’t work at weekend day offs. The workers got only 3 days off in the whole March and they were working overtime on the rest of those days.
“Attendance bonus and fabric bonus are cut if we don’t work overtime. All Sundays in March are called makeup days for Thingyan holidays and later it changed to overtime and those who didn’t work back than were cut and we are still being cut until now,” the workers said.
Each worker suffer from 20,000 kyats to 30,000 kyats due to these types of cuts and that amount of money is enough for a worker and their family to spend for 5 days.
There are workers who vomited due to impure drinking water in the factory. “They provided the drinking water via the pipe line with a big blue bucket but the water have odors due to the died insects inside it, some workers even vomited,” workers explained.
Although they have complaint for several times, the drinking water issue is ongoing and waters are overflowing in some toilets in the factory.
“There are total 10 toilets in the factory, 2 for the male and 8 for the female workers. 3 females’ toilets are overflowing with water and workers have to queue to use to useable toilets. This is neither good for the health or for the cleanliness of the workplace,” the workers said.
Workers said that soap or other cleaning products are not provided sufficiently although they have to use unclean toilets. Some supervisors verbally abuse them on the grounds that they last more than 5 minutes while they have to queue to use the toilets on the other hand.
The WHM Myanmar factory is owned by a Chinese national and located at the Sayar San Street, Hlaing Thar Yar Industrial Zone 2, Yangon Region.
