Workers from Myanmar York factory where discrimination exists asked for attendance bonus raised

By Labour Citizen Journalist - Oct 06, 2024

Workers from Myanmar York factory said that their request for an increase in attendance bonus due to raising commodity prices was denied by the factory officials.

“We want a salary that is inline with the commodity prices. We submit suggestion letters via the letter box and we processed via WCC,” said a worker.

Workers were criticized that they frequently asked for pay raise although the WCC member doesn’t ask for them. The factory replied their requests by a notice saying that wages can be raised only if the authorities directed to.

“We get paid only 20,000 kyats attendance bonus per month. Other garment factories pay 30,000, 40,000 and 50,000 kyats. It has been so long that we get paid this amount and we are asking for a total of 50,000 kyats,” a factory worker explained.

It is said that there are many workers who resigned due to insufficient wages and benefits. And the supervisors are also discriminating the workers.

“The supervisors biased in raising the grade bonus. Only those who are confident with them are raised but the ones who are really proficient, hit the target and handle big points are not. We don’t get paid as expect as due to these discriminations although we work the same. Workers with higher grade level receives more fabric fees. Supervisors get 6 times more than workers. They take all the benefits while forcing workers to hit the target. We only get the marginal wages,” said a worker.

Almost every supervisors from all departments are practicing biasing and discriminations in the factory which cause a loss for the workers.

“We don’t get leave for education and other reasons if we are not close to supervisors. They told HR doesn’t approve but those who are close to them get unpaid leave preventing their loss of length of service. We don’t get length of service as we don’t get unpaid leave and become like a new worker,” workers stated.

Myanmar York factory locates at Kyan Sitthar Road, Industrial Zone 4, Hlaing Thar Yar Township, Yangon region and operating with more than 1,600 workers.