By Hsu Latt Phyu - May 16, 2024
Workers from ETERNAL FASHION garment factory which locates at Anawrahta Baho Road, Anawrahta Industrial Zone, Hlaing Thar Yar Township, Yangon Region said that they are having a hard time as the factory is calling excessive overtime without a day off and cutting their benefits if they refuse to.
The working hours are from 8:00 am to 6:40 pm including 2 hours of overtime and they get paid 6,500 kyats daily wages, 20,000 kyats attendance bonus, 40,000 kyats for A+, 35,000 kyats for A, 35,000 kyats for B and 25,000 kyats for C grade as a
technical expert fee and they also received other bonuses, overtime fees and annual tips 2,000 kyats.
“The main workplace problem is we have to work 10 hours including 2 hours of overtime. The workers are selected and forced to work overtime from 6:40 pm to 12:00 am without their consents. We have to sleep at the factory on those days and go back to house with the ferry at 5:00 am and came back on time for the next day. They don’t give the technical expert fees, if we don’t do the overtime. So, workers are working as they afraid to lose it,” the worker explained.
The working hours becomes 16 hours per day if they have to work until 12 am and some workers only have 2 days off per month. Workers who don’t get paid the technical fees can’t cover the expenses so they are having to work without their consents.
“We have to work 16 hours according to their orders. But we can only feed our stomach only if we work like that. So, we can’t refuse but I am wondering who would feed us if our health effected because of that excessive workload.
It is said they are working overtime every day since the post Thingyan holiday and the cutting department doesn’t even have a day off and the other departments are also being selected to work overtime
Any type of leave are cut by 10,000 kyats, and according to the system, the workers will almost never get any benefits except for the daily wages.
“It is a huge loss after being cut according to their system weather we absent or don’t work overtime. Workers are suffering by only getting the daily wages after working tirelessly for the whole month,” said the worker.
There is also drinking water impurity problems in the factory that workers wished to be solved.
Workers requests are to call overtime only with their consents(not to cut technical expert fees to those who don’t work overtime), to provide purified drinking water, to grant legal leaves, not to cut the attendance bonus, to give 7,500 kyats daily wages equally to line QCs and fashion QCs.
The factory which have been operating for more than a year doesn’t have a trade union or a workplace coordination committee as a workplace dispute addressing mechanism. The factory is owned by a Chinese national and manufacturing VENTMAX and MCKINLEY brand apparels.
