By Min Ni Kyaw - Oct 28, 2024
Workers from J-Land Myanmar garment factory said that female and male workers who don’t work overtime on Sunday are verbally abused by the manager in public.
“They call overtime on Sunday but some workers were not able to come due to various reasons but the manager lady verbally abuse them and curse at them in public rudely,” said a worker.
The manager also transfer the workers to non-native departments for not working overtime on Sundays.
The worker said that they work every day without day off in the last month and worked on a Sunday in October. Workers were forced to sign agreement about overtime which is submitted to the labour office but the overtime period exceeds the legal limits.
“Overtime is only until 6:00 pm on the paper but they call until 7:00 pm saying that the orders are important. We are not informed about that in advanced. Our families worried about us as we cannot inform them. The nurse allow us to go back to house if we are sick but the manager denies. The same goes for leave,” a worker said.
Workers are not getting any types of leaves except social security leave and the wages equivalent for the seniority leave is given only after a year and a half.
“We don’t know what leave is. The manager lady verbally abuse us for submitting social security. We don’t get paid our bonus if we are labeled as absent. We lost around 40,000 kyats including the subsidies. The wages equivalent for the seniority leave is given only if we seek assistant from the workplace coordination committee.
“The employer doesn’t acknowledge the committee and they declared that. The manager is rampaging and the committee have difficulties to address every problem as they are also workers,” they said.
There are around 100 underage workers in the factory and they are not paid the same. A worker said that those underage workers are ordered to take a break if there is an investigation.
“There are underage workers from 12 to 17 and they are ordered to take a break 2 day before of any investigation. They only get paid 5,200 kyats per day and their hourly overtime wages are calculated upon that. The salary workers get paid 7,500 kyats per day as peak,” said a worker.
According to Myanmar Labour News’ 2023 data, the J-Land Myanmar garment factory is owned by a South Korean national and manufacturing worldwide famous GUESS brand with around 800 workers and located at Watayar Industrial Zone, Yangon.
