By Yoon Sat - Jul 10, 2024
The price of tea, which is also one of the goods that increased in price has also increased as well, so it is far away for the workers to buy a cup of tea in teashops.
According to our inquires, monthly-paid employees such as factory workers, companies’ frontline-stuffs, and hawkers are struggling to buy a shop-made tea with their incomes.
“A sachet of premier coffee costs around 400 kyats. We never though we would be drinking a sachet of premier for two times. We are doing it now. Coz, we can’t afford shop-made tea which is around 2,000 kyats. Instead of that, we can buy meat or fish. We gat paid only 5,800 kyats and a cup of tea is half of that,” said a worker.
The commodity prices crisis also includes shop-made tea and ready-made coffee mixes.
A cup of shop-made tea costs as low as 1,300 to 1,800 kyats, and 1,800 kyats to 2,000 kyats if customer takes home which means the price of a cup of tea is half of the minimum wage, 4,800 kyats a day, so workers save their money by not drinking shop-made tea.
A bag of ready made coffee costs more than 10,000 kyats and a sachet of coffee cost 4,00 kyats therefore workers consume it two times at morning and night.
"I only earns 5,000 kyats a day. I don't pay 1,000 or 2,000 to drink shop-made coffee. I only choose plain. I drink twice a day before; in the morning and night. But now I only drink it in the morning. Now it's 400 kyats per sachet. I'm saving up to buy important things. It's not easy to be a day laborer,” said a general worker.
For now, only the prices of goods have increased exponentially but the minimum wage of the workers has not increased as basic workers receive only 4,800 kyats and 1,000 kyats stipend per day, it may be difficult for basic workers to drink a cup of tea or a readymade coffee.
We see that the daily expenses of a worker reaches over 10,000 kyats according to commodity prices, so the minimum wage 4,800 kyats per day which was set in 2018 needs to be increased as soon as possible while commodity prices are rising.
The current pay raise of some factories are only for the senior and important workers for the factories and the other workers are still not entitled. Therefore, the workers are demanding that a nationwide legal pay raise is necessary so that all workers can enjoy the same.
