Workers’ makeup days in Myanmar’s new year festival or 2024 April violations
There were around 10 days workers get holiday for Thingyan but some garment factories close the factory for a day earlier and some restart a day later. No matter how they handle the holidays they are already exploited the workers and ready for the next exploitations too.
Myanmar Labor News has learned that 90 percent of garment, bag and shoe factories in Yangon have forced factory workers to work make up days for the Thingyan holiday. Workers were forced to work makeup days since the end of February for weekend day offs and public holidays. In addition to this they are also cut from their hourly rates of overtime.
Workers' wages for day offs and overtime should be doubled. But workers get paid only the fixed daily wages (4800+1000) kyats. Therefore, in addition to the exploitation of the workers' wages, some factory officials intimidated that the workers who did not come to work on that day would not be paid.
Workers told Myanmar Labor News that some factories were forced to work from a minimum of 2 days to a maximum of 5 days for Thingyan holidays. In addition to this, workers are forced to work makeup days for the public holidays in March and also for the Thingyan holiday, which makes them to work for up to 20 days without a day off.
Myanmar Labor News reported that the workers talked about the hardships they suffered in these factories as a violation in April.
SHUNRONG GRAMENTS MYANMAR garment factory which locates at Shwe Li street, Hlaing Tharyar Township, Industrial Zone 5, Yangon is manufacturing PROTECTIVE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS with more than 500 workers.
The workers said that the factory was forcing them to work overtime all night and on public holidays without their consent since March.
It is reported that the factory will be closed for 10 days during Thingyan, so instead of that holiday, they will have to work for 3 days in March. Out of those 3 days, there were people who did not go to work at Sunday, March 18. A worker, who did not want to be named, said that he was called into the office by the manager, who said, "We cannot pay for 10 days of Thingyan holiday without working."
On March 27th, overtime was called from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., but the factory did not pay.
SHUNRONG GRAMENTS MYANMAR workers said that they do not receive overtime and public holidays wages. Full news can be read at the following link.
Everyone can feel the heat of April in Myanmar. In the construction of factories in the country, most of them do not have the purpose of building what kind of products to manufacture. That's why the garment workers in the factory feel the heat as well as the pressure. The factory owners were required to fulfill their duties to ease the feeling of burnout in the workplace, but instead of that they are cutting workers overtime working hours which they should be given double for the Thingyan holidays.
Chinese national owned BOHUA FASHION CO,LTD factory which locates at Bamaw Atwin Wun Street, Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone, Hlaing Thar Yar Township is operating with more than 300 workers and manufacturing OUT WEAR, RESERVED and SInsay brand apparels.
The factory signed the day laborers a 2-month contract and fired them after that. Workers say that there shortage in drinking water when the weather is hot and there is no plan to clean the restrooms. They are discriminated in granting casual and medical leaves and they are also verbally abused in the workplace.
A worker said as following regarding the pay cut and forced to work makeup
“They said they would cut for 16 hours that we worked overtime in Saturdays as a makeup for 2 holidays of Thingyan. We do janitorial works the whole morning and normal works in evening. But the factory said that they would cut 4 hours of overtime from that. They don’t count the janitorial works in the working hours and force us to sign. They even told that we can file at anywhere,” said a worker from BOHUA FASHION CO,LTD.
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Most of the workers in the garment industry are not residents of Yangon, but from the remote area, so most of them will not be able to go to work on the reopening day of the factory. A worker told me that there are factories waiting to cut wages for these workers.
“Would they cut all daily wages for the whold Thingyan holiday if we miss to go the work on the reopening day. Because I missed one. I was cut in last year and they say they will cut no matter which day we absent,” she said.
In April, Myanmar Labor News published a total of 49 labor news. Among them, there are a total of 22 stories about factory violations against workers, 6 news articles on expatriate Burmese workers, 1 research review, 1 social life view and 19 other labor news articles.
Among the 22 violations news, 19 factories were involved. Among those factories, 3 factories were reported twice.
All the factories that were reported to have violated labor rights this April, garment, bag and shoes factories with a workforce of around 200 to around 2000.
The most common type of violation was pay and benefits cut, which was reported 15 times. After this, verbal abuse follows up with 11 times, forcing overtime than legal hours is 10 times, factories that pressures and intimidate the workers and not having a safe and good condition workplace is 9 times, factories that increase the fabric output is 7 times, illegal dismiss 6 times, discriminations 5 times, sexual harassment 3 times, violating day laborers 3 times and the violations of supervisors are reported 2 times each. Even the frequency is low, these cases are sensitive that need to be monitored and cared.
This graph is based on reports of violations against workers in April by Myanmar Labour News.
According to this graph BOHUA FASHION CO,LTD https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/labor-right-abusing-by-verbal-abuse and Heng Run Garment Co.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/workplace-violations-at-heng-run-garment-factory is the most violating and its owned by a Chinese national. Both factories located at the Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone.
The Chinese national owned MYAMKA GARMENT LIMITED https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/pregnant-workers-losing-maternity-leaves-and-benefits factory violate 9 type of violations.
The Yichang Hand bag (Myanmar) https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/labor-right-violats-at-yichang-handbag-myanmar-bag-factory , HOPE ONE CO.,LTD garment factory, Erdos Myanmar Knitwear https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/workers-reports-against-workplace-violations and Myanto Industrial CO.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/myanto-industrail-garment-factory-violating-the-labor-rights violated 8 types of violations.
SHUNRONG GRAMENTS MYANMAR https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/resigned-workers-cut-for-daily-wages-attendance-bonus-overtime-fees-and-expert-fees, Vic song- Myanmar footwear Co.,Ltd https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/vicsong-shoe-factory-reduce-40-percent-of-the-workers-salary-reduction-for-the-closed-period and Dishang Kenny Garment https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/kseng-myanmar-garment-force-workers-to-work-substitute-days-and-the-condition-remains-the-same-although-inspectors-came violated 7 types of violations.
The Chinese national owned KSENG (Myanmar) Apparel https://www.myanmarlabournews.com/en/posts/kseng-myanmar-garment-force-workers-to-work-substitute-days-and-the-condition-remains-the-same-although-inspectors-came from Thar Du Kan industrial zone violated 6 types of violations
The rest of the factories commit under 5 types of violations.
According to the analysis of the news published in Myanmar Labour News this April, there is no decrease in verbal abuse, and the main cause of it is the "unfair fabric output demands " and there is no decrease in that too.
Dismissing day laborers, not granting or allowing to contribute to the social security and violations upon underage child laborers are still occurring.
Sexual harassment on female workers increase as well as the physical abuses.
Although some of these categories are less in number, they be monitored and addressed. It cannot be denied that the existence of such content is due to the protection of the perpetrators.
Myanmar Labor News has considered that it is still necessary to focus not on the common violation but also on the personal violation as well.
Myanmar Labor News urged the labor activists, trade unions, officials of the trade unions and the officials of the labor office to pay attention to the personal violations are often hidden behind public violations.
Myanmar Labour Society
Research Team