Garment workers who are still being violated by overtimes (2024 July labour rights violations)

Myanmar Labor News reported 157 news items in July, including 33 news items about factories. Among these, two factories that were reported twice and Pepsi Company, which is facing a lawsuit, was also reported. It is found to have violated labor rights in 30 factories.

Myanmar Labor News has recorded and analyzed the data every month in order to find out more about the violations of labor rights. We hope to solve labor rights violations through this analysis.

Myanmar Labor News has documented 27 different types of labor rights. This classification is based on the rules and regulations of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the existing law labor laws in action and gender issues in Myanmar.

Reports of violations of workers are reported through direct inquiries to workers and via the labor organizations.

Outcomes

A review of labor news reports throughout the month of July revealed an increase in overtime law violations to the workers. There were 17 overtime calls in violation of the law in June but it increased to 24 times in July.

There were 2 public holidays and 4 weekends for a total of 6 days in July. By analyzing the news, we found out that workers are forced to work mid-night, all-night, Sunday and public overtimes without their consents on the days before the weekends and public holiday.

The other violations behind the overtime violations ranked by frequencies are cutting wages and benefits, not allowing to take legal leave, forcing to work continuously for more than 5 hours without giving a break, pressurizing, intimidating and having requirements to be a workplace with dignity.

We also found out that factories demanded the fabric outputs more than the normal rates, discriminated, illegally dismissed, violated the day laborers and child labors, formed Workplace Coordinating Committee against the law and violated the social security benefits and the Employment Contract.

The workers said they are having health and social issues due to unrefusable overtimes and losing their wages and rights due to being intimidated.

The factory visited by the Deputy Minister also involved in the violations

It is excerpted from a news report about the overtime conditions at the Mayfair Myanmar Garment Factory, where Deputy Minister of Labor Ministry U Win Shane visited.

The factory located at Makhayar Minthargyi Street, Industrial Zone 2, Dagon Myothit (Seik Kan) Township, Yangon and manufacturing DEFACTO brand apparels with around 1,500 workers.

“We worked all-night overtime until 1:00 a.m. the whole week from Monday to Saturday and worked until 7:00 p.m. on Saturday,” the worker said.

They were provided transportations on the days they worked until 10:00 p.m. in June but have to sleep in the factory unproperly on the days they worked until 1:00 a.m., according to a worker.

“I don’t feel secure. We lost our things but the factory didn’t take responsibility and accountability,” they said.

The factory provide the lunch on Sundays when workers worked overtime but didn’t give a substitute holiday for that. They worked until 6:30 p.m. on two Saturdays and until 1:00 a.m. on the other two in July.

Myanmar Labour News reported this news on July 7, 2024 and the Deputy Minister visited the factory on July 12, 2024.

We can see the real situation that Myanmar garment workers are currently going through by checking the Mayfair Myanmar garment factory’s new.

News Link – https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/mayfair-myanmar-garment-factory-force-overtime-until-100-am-and-also-on-sundays

In July, overtime violations increased by a third. overtime laws It was found that 23 factories violated the directives issued by the Factory and General Labor Law Inspection Department in 2022.

Myanmar Labor News also noticed that illegal overtime calling in the garment sector started in March, 2024.

Almost all the factories reported in June are CMP garment factories. Only two factories are factories that work with much more workforce, a furniture factory and a toy factory.’’

Graph representing the factories and type of violations they committed in July

The most violating factories in July are Feng Teng Garment factory and HE MeT Company Limited Garment Factory. The former committed 11 types of violations according to the news in July.

 “We have our dinner only after we arrived back to home after working until 8:30 p.m. We can’t take medical leave for health issues and neither casual leave for emergency issues. Daily wages 4,800 kyats, attendance bonus 10,000 kyats and subsidy 1,000 kyats; a total of 15,800 kyats is cut if we miss a day,” a worker from Feng Teng Garment Factory said.

Workers from Feng Teng Garment garment factory are not entitled to social security benefits if they want to take leave for health issues although they contributed the social security fees. Workers said that a foreigner woman is directly managing and verbally abusing them.

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He MeT Company Limited committed 10 types of violations. This factory was inspected by the labor officers but a worker said that there were no changes regarding the violations.

“Labor right violations were reported on social media on June 17, 2024 and 3 male and 2 female; a total of 4 inspectors from the Department visited the factory on July 28. They inquired 1 male and 22 female workers whether the news on social media is true. Some workers said the truth but some workers didn’t dare to. There was no overtime on that day and neither verbal abuse but it go back to normal starting the next days,” a worker said.

A worker’s comment about the deficiency regarding the inspections can be also found. The answers can’t be genuine as the workers have to talk in front of the factory managers in the labor right violating factory. There would be no benefits for workers if they can’t know what are the consequences of the inspection.

Labor activists have said that workers will become more cramped and migrate to more favorable places if this method is continued to use.

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The factory that is found out for committing 9 types of violations is New Plus garment factory. This factory was also inspected by the labor officers due to violations as well. The factory was reported two times; one before the inspection and one after that. A worker said there is no change regarding the overtime and verbal abuses although it was inspected.

“It was recently reported due to excessive overtime. The Labor Office officials inquired the workers by paper. We continue working overtime until mid-night after they went back. Nothing changed. The factory doesn’t care no matter who came to inspect. Only the one who report might exhaust. The inspectors doesn’t come during overtime hours to know the truth. May be the officials from the factory and the Labor Office are in a team,” a worker said.

 Dongxin Garment Co., Ltd factory committed 8 types of labor right violations. The factory owner doesn’t allow the workers to vote for their favorable representatives in forming the WCC but forced them to vote the ones they selected. Furthermore, the factory dismissed the workers who asked for Employment Contract.

“The factory doesn’t explain the labor laws that workers should know and the superiors are excessively

abuse us verbally but we can’t complaint. We are also forbitten to report to the labor office and intimidated that they will find out who report and dismiss,” said a worker.

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Factories that were reported with 7 types of violations are KSHENG Myanmar garment factory, Myanmar Guotai Huasheng Glory Fashion Garment garment factory and Wounderful Apparel Co, Ltd garment factories.

The main violations in the three factories mentioned above are verbal abuse, violating the overtime law, pressurizing, not allowing the workers to take leave (in some factories), dismissing, forcing to work more than 5 hours continuously and not forming the WCC in accordance with the law.

De Xin Myanmar garment factory, Heng Li Garment garment factory, LITA MYANMAR garment factory, LUCKY FORTUNE GARMENT garment factory and the Tha Shu (Myanmar) Glory Fashion garment factory were found out committing 6 types of labor right violations in June.

Tha Shu (Myanmar) Glory Fashion Co, Ltd was reported twice and it was a factory inspected by the Labor Officers but workers stated that there were no changes.

There were 7 factories that committed 5 types of violations and they are Jun Coporation Co.,Ltd garment factory, Mayfair Myanmar garment factory ( https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/mayfair-myanmar-garment-factory-force-overtime-until-100-am-and-also-on-sundays ), Myanmar Haisheng Fashion Garment garment factory, Myanmar Huasheng Golden garment factory, Sheng Mei Garment garment factory, VHT garment factory and WHN Myanmar garment factory.

Those factories cut the workers wages and benefits and forced the workers to work continuously for more than 5 hours. Among them, workers from 5 factories said that the factories didn’t allow them to take lave and 3 factories were having workplace deficiencies.

There were collective demands for pay raise in some factories during July. JOC Myanmar Knitwear garment factory was reported for the collective demand. The news stated that the factory intimidated the workers that their protest can be taken actions by the Labor officers and the employer ignored the fact that there are no Employment Contracts.

Violatons

Although the frequencies are lesser covers the important ones.

Myanmar Labour News reported 2 factories where the foreigners directly manage the workers, 4 factories which the WCC doesn’t help the workers and from the WCC against the laws, 2 factories that doesn’t make Employment Contracts, 1 factory which charge for social security but doesn’t allow the benefits, 3 factories which violated the pregnant workers, 2 factories which force the workers to give false answers to factory inspectors, 1 factory which doesn’t take responsibility and accountability for workplace accidents, 4 factories which violated the day laborers, 3 factories which violated the child laborers, 1 factory which its’ supervisor  usurp against the workers and a factory which crack down the trade union.

Workplace deficiencies such as insufficient dinning place, impurified drinking water, lack of dispensary, lack of medicines, forbiting to visit the dispensary, lack of transportation, damaged and unsanitary toilets, no security in workplace, roof leak, confiscating workers’ phones and installing CCTV in front of the toilets.

We analyzed that 10 factories are reported for the deficiencies mentioned above.

In addition, 7 factories were reported for discriminating the workers who don’t work overtime and can’t finish the fabric output demands.

Review

By analyzing the factories reported in July, we found out that overtime violations occurred the most and workers are working continuously from 6 to 8 hours without a break.

Furthermore, there are factories that calls overtime on 2 Sundays which are weekend holidays minimally or 4 mid-night (until 12:00 a.m.) and 4 all-night (until 4:00 a.m.) overtime minimally in a month.

Other violations such as not allowing leave, discriminating, abusing the pregnant workers and allowing the foreigners to directly manage the workers are also occurring as well.

The factories reported in July were inspected by the Labor officers but workers said there were no changes and actions.

We also found out that factories did not form the WCC in accordance with the law, frauded the social security fees of the workers and the labor officers themselves interfering of forming the trade unions in legally and threating and intimidating the workers.

According to the data, there are 450,000 workers in the garment sector and rank among the country's top 10 income earners. Myanmar Labor News would like to consider that all the income and benefits earned by the labors of the workers may lost if workers' rights are not protected.

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Min Ni Kyaw

Myanmar Labour Society
Research Team