By Hsu Latt Phyu - Mar 06, 2024
Garment workers from Dongxin Garment factory are working 10 or 12 hours a day and all night overtime although the labor law stated the legal working hours as 8 hours a day and they don’t even get paid the overtime wages yet.
The factory locates at Nawaday Street, Industrial Zone 3, Hlaing Thar Yar Township, Yangon region. It is owned by a Chinese national and operating with more than 700 workers but neither trade union nor workplace coordination committee are formed.
“The working hours are from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and an addition of two hours of overtime. We have to work the whole day including all night but we get paid for only two hours of overtime and not get paid for the rest and neither for the Sundays,” said the workers.
The factory asks fabric output together from the seamstresses and the workers together based on the daily wages and force to work them until they get fabric fee of 6,600 kyats a day.
“The seamstresses and the helpers have to work until they get the fabric fees of 6,600 kyats and they have to work until the midnight, dawn or even on Sundays if they can’t finish as some outside fabrics also includes,” the worker explained.
The workers are having difficulties to finish the fabric outputs and demanded rates and they can’t even tell the factory that they want the overtime wages due to certain circumstances. There is no one to consult their difficulties as there is no workplace disputes coordination teams that makes us them being pressurized. The workers are also not allowed to take the legal gate passes.
The day laborers hired in the factory don’t get the same benefits as the permanent workers although they are assigned the same tasks and the same working hours. The overtimes the factory is calling are also not approved by the respective labor offices but just by the employer, all supers and the supers.
There is no reception and medic clinic in the factory and the employer does not take responsibility for the workers’ workplace accidents.
The factory is operating for just more than a year and manufacturing Windcore brand jackets.
The workers appeals are
1. To give the wages for overtime and also to pay with backdates for the previous ones.
2. To appoint the day laborers as permanent workers.
3. To provide a medic clinic and to take responsibility for the workers’ risk on way back home
4. To approve the legal leaves.
