By Hsu Latt Phyu - May 01, 2024

Workers from Lon John International garment factory said that the factory increase the fabric outputs in four times and the supervisors are continuously humiliating them.

Lon John International garment factory is owned by a South Korean Natioanl and locates at Hsu Htue Pan Street, Mingalar Done Township, Yangon Region and manufacturing Lon John with around 600 workers.

The workers have to give 20 fabrics pieces per hour before but they have to pay 80 right now and the all supers are also verbally abusing them if they couldn’t.

“The factory is asking fabric outputs beyond the workers’ productivity and the workers are working on it without going to toilet or take a water break. The workers who finished are assigned another task. Workers who failed to finish are forced to sign a warning which they are dismissed after 3 attempts,” said a worker.

The super from Line B4 is oppressing the workers and the male supers participate in it by verbally harassing the workers.

“The supervisors are Burmese but they are humiliating us to get the excessive fabric outputs. They get hundreds of thousands of fabric bonus for finishing the demands but we get paid only tens of thousands,” said a worker.

The workers are not entitled to leave and that cost them from 40,000 kyats to 50,000 kyats for missing a day of work and including the Sunday’s wages, the workers addressed their damages.

“The officials came to inspect but the truth is not revealed as the supervisors already selected the workers who will lie for them. The factory is hiring the underage children too. They even cheated the EC contract by deploying new rules. The workers are not allowed to take mobile devices and wallets to the factory and there are even cases such as the worker’s parent pass away or the worker’s kid heavily suffer as the factory confiscate their mobile devices making them unable to contact or get contact from their home. There are illegally lottery tickets dealers in the factory which can be witnessed from the CCTV but there are no valid actions against them,” the worker said.

The factory neither have trade union or workplace coordination committee and the workers are hoping to have in the future to resolve the workplace disputes.

The workers appeals:

1.  To give access to the legal leaves

2. Not to force the workers to sign warrnings and dismiss for not getting the one sided fabric output demands

3. Not to cut the Sunday’s wages for absent as the workers don’t get access to any legal leaves

4. Not to stipule any new rules without the workers’ agreement.

5. The supervisors to not verbally abuse the workers.