"Sheng Mei Garment Forced to Work Overtime on Two Public Holidays and Sign Wages Cut Plan", 21 June 2024

The Sheng Mei Garment factory in the Wat Thara Industrial Zone does not give workers a day off on public holidays, but instead forces them to work overtime, according to workers.

“They made them work from Thursday night (July 18) until 4 a.m. the next day, and they only gave them one day off, Martyrs’ Day. They made them work overtime (OT) on the Waso full moon day today and the Sunday holiday tomorrow (July 21),” said a worker.

The factory officials said they would pay them Ks16,000 for overtime, but the workers were only paid Ks12,000...

Last June, the factory forced them to work overtime for three weeks and until 8:30 p.m. every night for almost two months.

The workers said they were forced to work until 6:30 p.m. every Saturday and until 4:30 p.m. on Sundays. The workers said they only got a day off in the week they were paid in June. They only got a 10-minute break each time they had to work overtime.

“We worked continuously from lunch until 6:30 p.m. On days when we had to work until 8:30 p.m., we were given a 10-minute break at 6:30 p.m. to get fingerprinted and eat bread....[we] didn’t get a full break,” the workers said.

The factory is currently saying that it will increase their daily wage but will not pay them the 30,000 kyats bonus and will also cut their clothing allowance, the workers said.

“The factory [said] [t]hey will pay 7,000 kyats a day...They said they’ll increase the next payment by 30 percent. They also said they’ll cancel it if we don’t get any orders. Now they’ve cut it by 10 percent. Nothing is stable in this factory. We don’t know for sure what kind of wages they’ll get,” he said.

The workers also said that the 7,000 kyats wage increase will only be for garment workers, not workers in other departments in the factory.

Although there is no wage increase, they have issued new rules and are threatening to issue warning letters (intimidation) and fire workers if they violate them. In addition, the workers said they were forced to sign a plan that would cut their rights.

“...Five supervisors and line supervisors forced them to sign it...“They threatened to cut me off if I didn’t,” he said.

Although the factory has a WCC, the workers’ representatives are only supervisors, so they don’t solve the workers’ problems, the workers said.

The Sheng Mei Garment factory is located in Aung Chanth Road, Wada Industrial Zone, Yangon...It is known that around 800 workers work in the factory.

[Translation via Google Translate]