By  Min Ni Kyaw - Jun 19, 2025

#Letter

I am a worker from Fang Hua Garment Factory. We are regularly asked to work overtime on Sundays. The factory deducts 20,000 kyats from our regular attendance bonus if we don’t work on those days.

As garment workers, we rely entirely on the daily wage, overtime pay, and this regular attendance bonus. There are no other benefits provided.

We work daily from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays, the factory often keep us until 6:00 p.m.  although they should release us at 4:00 p.m. Sometimes it's 5:00 p.m., and occasionally they do release us at 4:00 p.m. We haven’t refused the overtimes being asked to do these days.

But deducting our regular attendance bonus just because we take Sunday off is unfair. They label the daily bonus as “10,000 kyats” but only pay 7,800 kyats for holidays. They also deduct for social security, but we haven’t received our social securtiy cards yet.

Phones are also confiscated for the whole working day. Workers have no rights here. There is no trade union. No medical clinic either.

Fang Hua is located on Min Aya Road, Shwe Than Lwin Industrial Zone, Hlaing Tharyar Township. It is a garment factory with about 500 workers and is owned by Chinese national.

All we ask is to be able to rest on Sundays.

Thank you.