By Hsu Latt Phyu - Aug 05, 2024
Workers from BOHUA FASHION garment factory which located at Bamaw Atwin Wun Street, Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone, Hlaing Thar Yar Township, Yangon Region said that the factory dismissed and reduced the grade bonuses of the workers who refuse to work overtime. They said that due to that they are working overtime until 9:00 p.m. causing health issues to them.
It is known that the factory is owned by a Chinese national and manufacturing brands such as minoti, RESERCD and CALLIOPE, there are more than 250 workers but there is no trade union in the factory. The workers stated that they are suffering from health issues in the long term due to working from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. including the overtime.
“Its true that we would be convenient with the salary only if we work 2 hours of overtime but calling overtime until 9:30 p.m. doesn’t seems good. The lunch time is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and we worked until 9:30 p.m. continuously for every day and we can’t d handle it anymore. And we still have to work all-night overtime once in two days,” the worker said.
The factory doesn’t grant them the gate pass to visit the clinic although workers are suffering due to the excessive overtime. A day of absent cost them to lose 4,800 kyats daily wages, 1,000 kyats subsidy and 10,000 kyats attendance bonus, a total of 15,8000 kyats per day.
“We work mid-night overtime on every Saturdays. The shops are already closed when we go back home at 9:30 p.m. There are multiple days we missed the dinner and we aren’t dare to refuse to work overtime because we afraid of being fired and reduced our grade bonuses. They even don’t provide us enough meals on mid-night overtime working days.
There are many day laborers in the factory and they are not appointed as day laborers although they have been working nearly a year and they are losing the leave benefits. Snap and cutting departments have the most day laborers and it is also learnt that the underage child laborers are also forced to work the same as the adults.
“There is no leave benefits here. They cut the daily wages, attendance bonus and subsidy even if we inform about leave. There is neither dispensary nor medicines in the factory. They don’t give us sufficient dinning place as well,” the worker said.
The violations are reported in the news multiple times but there is no changes in the factory as they taught the workers to lie to the inspectors.
“The security man monitor the female while we work all-night overtimes. They also mass up with every worker in the day time as well,” a worker said.
Workers are seeking for resolvents of the violations and the lost of their rights and the facts they want to request are
1. To allow legal casual and medical leaves
2. To appoint day laborers with more than 3 months of service as permanent stuffs
3. Not to call all-night overtimes and to survey the workers consents for calling overtime
4. Not to force the underage laborers as the same as adults
5. The inspectors to not inspect the workers the employer select but to figure it out themselves
6. To provide a dispensary, to repair the damaged toilets and to make the dinning place sufficient.
