By Min Ni Kyaw - Jan 16, 2024
It is reported that BOHUA FASHION factory which locates A Twin Wun Road, Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone, Yangon is exploiting the labor by demanding the fabric target 2 times of before and forcing to finish within 8 working hours. The workers also said that they have been forced to work like this for more than 3 months.
"The factory sews the fabric Intermediumly. It wants to takes the important orders and force the workers 2 times as before. They ask 150/160 pants which only asked for 90 before. Those force us to finish those targets without calling overtime. The deadline is 4:00 pm. It’s labor exploiting. Orders are also excessive, one come after another. The workers become exhaust and can’t withstand in the long term,” said a worker.
The workers said they are suffering from stress and fatigue as they were forced to finish during normal working hours. In addition, he said that workers are facing difficulties as their income was lower than before.
"It makes as sweat and thirsty. I want to finish the job quickly and feels that I want to run away from the work place. The income is quite low. It's been 3 months without OT. They called twice on Sunday. That's all. Instead of being able to support my parents, I am struggling myself alone," said one of the workers.
The workers said that even though overtime was called every Sunday in accordance with their desire but they were forced to come mandatorily twice. He said that if he they are assigned to work half a day on Saturday, they are not assigned for next week and asked to miss for two days. They usually go back with their own methods as the ferry does not provide transportation.
They assigned as mandatory overtimes on Sundays in December and January. The factory closed on the Saturday of the following week and reduced the OT fee for the half day overtime of the previous Saturday. If there is a department that works overtime, they don’t provide transportation for the workers who leave first. They said they would pay for the bus fee, but they haven't paid so far. They missed tp give for three, four or five times already," the workers said.
As well as the factory does not allow leaves and cut 60,000 kyats for missing a day, the grade bonuses of the most comfortable people with the line supers who are mean and rude to the workers are set at highest.
“The supers don’t give us causal and medical leaves although we inform them. They don’t neither report to the office. Daily wages, attendance bonus and grade bonus; all are cut for an absent. I haven’t been an absent through my service career at here and I still don’t get a leave. Supers set the highest grade bonus for those who are comfortable with them. A2+ is the highest. It can even be called as bribery. Line 5 and line 3 supers are the worst. Both supers and leaders swears far beyond than anyone would dare to listen. They sometime points out their body parts,” said a worker.
It is reported that they lost 15,000 kyats to 20,000 kyats of their salary due to the biased grade bonus setting of the supers. They said that even though the WCC group was formed at the BOHUA FASHION factory, they could not solve the problems of the workers.
The factory is managed by a Chinese woman and operating with two all supers, four supers and eight leaders together with around 200 workers.
