Protests, allegations, inspections, actions, legal battles and 2024 August violations
We found 42 news items of labor right violations in factories and workshops after analyzing nearly 140 news articles reported on Myanmar Labour News’ Website. These news items covers violations from 38 factories and workshops and found many differences in the labour sector.
The business reported were garment, plush toy, bag, cap, footwear, network and communication, bank, automobile, beverage, sports equipment, picture frame and offshore oil and gas businesses.
The noticeable news reported in August was the chief officer of Labour Ministry themselves participated in the interference of the formation of labour associations, intimidations and illegal dismissals.
Workers’ pay raise demands frequently occur after Junta’s ministry instructed to pay extra 1,000 kyats subsidy per day in August. We can also find a news that report about the court’s fine on employer who violated the overtime law.
There are also news that covers the late night overtime recruitments of MADE project membership factories which are trying to have responsibility and accountability and about the factory that force around 500 workers to hide the inspectors.
Violating ILO’s freedom of association
Myanmar Labour News reported that U Tin Maung Htoo, the chief officer of the Department of Labour, Hlaing Thar Yar (Western) Township didn’t help the Myanmar Jiale Fashion Co.,Ltd -2 workers’ formation of association.
Workers said that U Tin Maung Htoo didn’t response even after more than 2 months although they submit the forms in accordance with the law. “They don’t filter our forms and neither gives us form (6). They ignore us and said they are not free whenever we inquire,” said a worker.
The news reported that workers complaint the factory’s failure of transportation, reducing points, discriminating in overtime and transferring to other departments without workers consents to U Tin Maung Htoo. The news item said that U Tin Maung Htoo was ignoring and shouting the workers whenever they asked for updates until August 19, 2024 when that news was uploaded.
Myanmar signed International Labor Organization (ILO) Regulation 87, the right of workers to form associations since shortly after her independence in 1948. The signatory countries of the ILO must take responsibility and provide assistance to the workers in order to form labor organizations.
Similar incident happed at Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment factory where workers had to wait about a month to form trade union. Workers said that the deputy chief officer of Department of Labour visited the factory but inspected the trade union members in HR office and verbally abused. The interpreters took video during the incident.
The mentioned factory dismissed the trade union president and the negotiations took for 20 days after the worker sued the employer. The employer reappointed the worker after negotiations.
The activist and assistance teams said that Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment factory is reported by workers for 3 illegal dismissal, 1 discrimination, 2 violations of employment contract, 2 failures to provide employment contract, 1 violation of freedom of association, 3 pay cut and 1 collective demand.
Legal battles and actions
There are frequent legal battles against the employer in the labour sector currently including the Pepsi case which already took more than 30 trials and civil cases for violations of employment contracts. Myanmar Labour News reported 5 news items about employees suing the employers. The business that were sued by the workers are Ooredoo Myanmar, Pepsi, Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment Co, ltd and Golden Color Fashion Myanmar
News>> https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/an-employee-sued-ooredoo-myanmar-for-illegal-dismiss
Golden Color Fashion Myanmar garment factory was fined by the court but the status of other factories are not yet known. News >> https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/the-court-fined-the-owner-and-manager-of-the-factory-for-forcing-overtime-without-the-consent-of-the-workers-and-said-that-they-are-not-allowed-to-continue-calling-for-overtime
Inspections
Myanmar Labour News’ August news covers 10 factories where labour inspectors visited. These inspections are reported by the workers and officers from township labour departments and brand representatives take part in the inspections
The factories inspected are Sincere season (Myanmar) Co.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/sincere-season-garment-factory-calls-the-workers-on-sunday BOHUA FASHION, Dexin Myanmar https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/de-xin-myanmar-garment-factory-workers-dismissed-after-inspection HERMITE Myanmar https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/hermite-plush-toy-factory-forcing-workers-to-work-8-hours-continuously-without-breaktime-and-doesnt-give-any-day-off-as-well Myanmar Haisheng https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/myanmar-haisheng-fashion-clothes-garment-factory-calling-excessive-overtimes New Plus https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/new-plus-garment-factory-call-overtime-until-900-pm-after-being-inspected-by-the-labor-officers LITA MYANMAR https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/lita-myanmar-garment-factory-violating-labor-rights Dongxin Gament Co.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/dongxin-gament-abuse-labor-rights-and-a-wcc-member-dismissed-for-helping-the-victims U&G (Myanmar) Fashion Co.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/ugs-garment-factory-calling-overtime-until-midnight-on-saturdays
The factory officials thought the workers to lie the inspectors and the false answers, bribery and corruption leads to the violations upon the workers. GYSEN Myanmar Apparel force the 500 workers to hide when the inspectors came during the Sunday’s overtime. News Link>> https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/500-workers-were-forced-to-flee-when-inspectors-arrived-during-overtime
Protests
Myanmar Labour News reported 6 protests in August. One protest demanded the dismissal of certain stuffs of the factories rather than pay raise. The factory is Hang Kei Myanmar garment factory. News link>> https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/workers-from-hang-kei-myanmar-garment-factory-being-violated
The other protests where workers asked for pay raise were –EWTOP LOTUS Co,ltd garment factory https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/ewtop-lotus-workers-ask-for-1000-kyats-subsidy Pro Cap (D4) cap factory https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/pro-cap-factory-intimidate-the-workers-every-month-to-sign-salary-receipt-that-covers-only-wages-for-30-days Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment Co, ltdhttps://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/dismissed-trade-union-leader-of-chu-yang-myanmar-factory-reappointed-after-negotiations-reached-settlement Myanmar Arr Thit Man Motor Co.,Ltd Very Impressive Prospect (VIP) sport equipment factory https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/workers-protesting-for-pay-raise-at-vip-sport-equipment-factory-from-watayar-industrial-zone
Myanmar Labour News reported 42 news items of 38 factories in August. The number of labour right violating factories rosed 25 % comparing to July’s statistics which was only 30 factories.
Myanmar Labour News classified labour right violations to 27 categories based on violating the law in act, discriminating based on gender, violating ILO’s conventions and the status of the consequences actions.
There were 24 categories of violations in August and the violations can be found in the graph from highest to lowest frequency,
Most violating factories
MYANMAR HUA YUE garment factory is the most violating factory of August and violated 16 types of violations. The factory is owned by a Chinese national and manufactures brands such as DOWN BARBARA LEBEK and bala bala brands.
The news said that the factory is locates in Kalarkone village, Myaung Takar Industrial Zone, Mawbe Township, Yangon region and workers are suffering from excessive mandatory all-night overtimes, not provided dinner and transportation.
“They call overtime non-stop. We have to work mid-night and all-night overtime every week. Those who don’t work overtime are treated with malice and humiliated. Only the supervisors are provided dinner but the workers are not. We also have to go back with our plan. The overtime wages are paid for our transportation. We don’t get any benefits. We just lose our labors,” said a worker.
The daily wages and overtime fees are biased and overtime fees are given only after a week. Furthermore, day laborers and young workers in the factory are hired only after they work for 6 months.
“Day laborers get paid only for the day they worked. They don’t have paid holiday. A day laborer fell from high when they tried to hung the clothes and took 3 days off after visiting the clinic. The factory cut them for taking off for 3 days and also fired,” a worker explained.
The news also report other violations such as the foreigner factory manager directly manage the workers, raise their tone in the workplace, interpreters are given permission to manage the workers, cutting 500 kyats for print finger late, cutting the worker’s salary for vernation towards supervisors without their agreement and security stuff harass the workers during searches.
Sincere season (Myanmar) Co., Ltd garment factory violated 12 types of violations and reported twice within a month. This factory dismiss more than 40 workers on the ground of they are underage. The workers didn’t get the full compensations at once. The township labour officer participated but there was no transparency.
News Link>> https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/sincere-season-garment-factory-calls-the-workers-on-sunday
The factory with 11 types of violations is EWTOP LOTUS CO,ltd garment factory. The factory is owned by a Chinese national and hires more than 300 workers. The above link is about the news of workers’ pay raise protest.
Two countries violated 10 types of violations and they were Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment Co, ltd and LITA MYANMAR garment factory https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/lita-myanmar-garment-factory-violating-labor-rights . Workers collectively demanded in Chu Yang (Myanmar) Garment Co, ltd and the news link was mentioned.
Most violated category (findings)
We found out that overtime violations are the frequently occurred violations in August. Factories called overtime against workers consents and broke the legal limits. 21 factories were found violating overtimes among the 38 factories we had reported which can be interpreted as more than the half.
19 factories are cutting the wages and benefits for absent whether workers inform to take leave or labeled as absent as they don’t allow leave.
There are 18 factories which force the labour and 17 factories illegally dismissed. 14 factories were reported for not providing or not sufficiently providing drinking water, restrooms, transportations and medicines.
13 factories were reported for not allowing workers to take leave and 11 factories were reported for superiors’ verbal abuses
Unforgettable incidents
Important and shocking incidents was occurred although the frequency of occurrences is low.5 factories cracked down the trade unions and 5 factories were reported for sexual harassment.
There are 7 factories violating day laborers and 5 factories forcing child workers to do adult tasks. 7 factories taught the workers to lie the inspectors and forced them to hide. 7 factories are found force transferring the workers to non-native departments. There are also 5 factories which violated the employment contract or failed to provided and 2 factories didn’t give necessary break times to workers.
Review
Labor organizations have pointed out that not following the ILO’s provisions after signing can led to being sectioned by the international communities. The lack of emphasis on practical complaints on the ground also makes the workers distrust the complaint mechanism currently operated by the ministry.
For the closest example, in 2023, only 1 percent of factories took action against complaints of labor rights violations listed on the Ministry of Labor website. Therefore, we consider that the ground operations need to be realistic to gain the workers' trust. In August, a labor official himself joined in the dismissal, and the actions to ban labor organizations from forming is not free of bribes and encourages labor rights violations.
Although there have been lawsuits and actions, these numbers are relatively low compared to frequency of labour right violations. The assisting teams are criticizing on the fact that workers themselves have to process the legal cases which the ministry should help.
Township labour officers inspected most factories reported by Myanmar Labour News but the final results says that the news are different from the real situations and actions were not taken. Workers are still suffering as the same thing happen in inspections on violation factories during August. It is also significant that numerous pay raise demands occurred in August.
Some factories and workshops knows the directive to pay additional 1,000 kyats subsidy per day but some factories don’t have transparency and failed to inform the workers by alibiing many reasons.
There are factories which pay more than 6,800 kyats per day including the additional subsidy. The pay raise demands also happened in these factories.
The workers' demands are breaking away from previous forms of movement. Workers have found a way to meet the demands of work in a calm and purposeful way by stop working. The frequency of pay cut, leave denial, discriminations rosed int eh previous months.
In addition, the fact that the MADE project, which is being implemented by the European Union to ensure that garment factories are held accountable at work, forced workers to work overtime late at night is revealing the violation of the rights upon garment workers in Myanmar.
It is also found that frequency of sexual harassments increased and pregnant women are forced to be equal to other workers.
According to news reports in August, the rights of workers who are currently mainly involved in the garment sector are still being violated and it can also be considered that there are violations of workers in the other factories and businesses in Myanmar.
We hope that the analysis for August violations would help the workers, assistance teams and members and aim the employers and officials of the Department of Labour to concern.
Min Ni Kyaw
Myanmar Labour Society