By Thar Gyi - Aug 11, 2025
#Letter
Today, the factory issued a new rule. They are making us start work 20 minutes earlier. Our work hours officially began at 8:00 AM before. Now, they are making us clock in at 7:40 AM.
It’s hard to bathe and do laundry that early for those of us staying in the factory dorms, with so many people sharing facilities.
No one was late when the start time was 8:00 AM, . We even started work before 8:00 AM. But now this new rule feels like it’s violating our freedom.
We don’t know yet what the punishment will be if we don’t arrive by 7:40 AM, but most likely they’ll deduct money. They can cut anywhere from 1 yuan to 50 yuan. That money gets put into a box labeled as “donation fund.” The box is right there where we can see it. The ones making us put the money in are the supervisors and senior managers.
The factory does have something they call a charity fund, but we don’t know if that money really goes there.
Night overtime would go until 10:30 or 11:00 PM in the past. Now it’s until 9:30 PM. We don’t get paid any overtime wages for it.
We break for lunch at 11:45 AM if we start at 8:00 AM. We start again at 1:00 PM and finish work at 7:15 PM.
Other factories have lunch at 12:00 PM and then work from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Our hours are more than 10 hours.
Meal breaks and finish times are different depending on the factory. We start again at 8:00 PM for night overtime, but we don’t get paid for it. This kind of overtime happens every day, even on Sundays and other days off.
June and July are the months with the most overtime. The garment quota keep increasing day by day. The targets are beyond what any human can keep up with.
There are Chinese workers in the factory. Their wages are much higher even though we work the same hours.
They earn from 100 to 200 yuan per day, while we get a maximum of 59 yuan. The factory had over 3,000 workers in the past, but many leave every month . Now it’s far fewer than that.
Myanmar workers face forced labor and direct abuse here in China, . We are always at the disadvantage.
There is no organization to help us. Even if there was, we wouldn’t know where to report. This factory has been mentioned before on Myanmar Labour News. It is Longchuan Depin Clothing Manufacturing Co., Ltd, located in Jinfeng, China.
