By Hsu Latt Phyu - Jul 23, 2024

The Chinese national owned Feng Teng Garment which located at Sabal Street, Industrial Zone 5, Hlaing Thar Yar Township, Yangon Region is asking for fabric outputs which exceeds than the workers’ productivity and calling excessive overtime. The workers said they are having difficulties as they can’t refuse to work overtime.

It is reported that there is no trade union in the factory although it is operating with more than 500 workers.

The factory is manufacturing ERC brand pants and a production line with 30 people are asked for 45 fabric piece per hour and workers are verbally abused if they can’t finish the demands. The Chinese female who is the in charge is directly managing the factory and urging the supervisors to oppress the workers.

The day laborers are not paid for the holidays and get paid only 5,800 kyats per day on working days. The underage child laborers are also hired in the factory.

“Day laborers are not promoted to permanent stuffs even after they worked for more than 3 months. Some workers dismissed without compensation after 3 months,” a worker explained.

The working hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. from Monday to Friday including 4 hours of overtime and until 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays.

“We can have dinner only after 8:30 p.m. when we arrived back home. We can’t take medical leave for health issues and causal leaves for emergency issues. Daily wage 4,800 kyats, allowance 1,000 kyats, attendance bonus 10,000 kyats; a total of 15,800 kyats are cut for a day of absent,” said the worker.

The workers’ lost also include the fact that they are not entitled to social security benefits although they had paid it for.

The toilets are not under maintenance and the damaged doors are not repaired. There is no clinic in the factory and gate pass is not allowed to visit exterior clinics for health issues.

“The Chinese women told us to resign if we are absent. They scold us with a speaker in the factory. The resigned workers also don’t get paid of their full wages. They said we can report to any where we like. There is no dignity in our workplace,” the worker said.

The workers want to request for the following fact demanding the resolvents for asking one-sided fabric output demands, calling overtime without their consents and not getting access to social security.

1. The Chinese national female to not directly manage the factory and verbally abuse them

2. TO allow them legal medical and casual leaves

3. To repair the damaged toilets and to provide maintenances

4. To ask the workers’ consents for overtime

5. To ask only the fabric output demands which aligns with the workers’ productivity