By Hsu Latt Phyu - Jun 03, 2024
Workers from Tianjin Fashion Milestone Garment factory said that they are working 3 hours of overtime a day after 8 working hours and also forced to work overtime on Sundays as wells.
The Chinese owned factory is located on Seik Kan Thar Street, Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone, Hlaing Thar Yar Township and operating with more than 1,100 workers.
Although there were more than 1,300 workers in the workplace in the past, they had to regularly work overtime for up to 3 and a half hours a day, and on Sundays as well. Those tired workers who were not allowed to rest resigned from job.
“The working hours are from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm and the lunch time is from 11:30 am to 12:00 pm. WE work continuously from 12:00 am to 7:30 pm and the employer doesn’t allow us to take a break although we are requesting. A cavity with 55 people including supervisors and helpers are asked 35 jackets per hour and the super verbally abuse if we can’t finish. We have to work without having lunch to finish. We are cut from 500 kyats to 1,000 kyats for quality failed fabrics. Even if we finish after working every minute, they still exploit our bonus or discriminate,” said a worker who don’t want to be named.
The factory doesn’t have a trade union and they are manufacturing VERO MOODA, Sinsay and LCWAIKIKI brands apparels. There is a workplace coordination committee but can’t help any issues as they are only formed by the selected workers of the employer’s favor.
“There is a nurse and a medic-clinic but there are no medicines and they don’t treat us well or give us medicines if we visit the clinic. The in charge of COC is a Myanmar national but yet they point things with feet to junior workers,” they said.
The workers said that they want to request to give a day off a week as they are working overtime daily without day offs which cause them health issues, to survey their consents before calling overtime, the supervisors to not verbally abuse the workers, the Myanmar national COC in charge to not point with feet and to ask only the possible fabric outputs.
