Myanmar garment factories' workers face tough conditions

18 Dec '15

6 min read

Workers reported that they sometimes face verbal abuse by factory supervisors, who often pressured them to work faster. Almost one in four workers reported doing forced overtime and several reported doing unpaid overtime. A number of respondents reported working through lunch breaks and into the night to meet high production targets.

“Last month we had to do overtime until dawn (the next day). We had to do this overtime for one week continuously... It harms my health. I don't want to work all night until the next morning. We also regularly don't receive all of our overtime wages,” Swe Swe Hlaing, a worker said during the survey.

“They think that we are like animals. I know I have no rights to make a complaint so I have to bear it. I have been working here so many years and we try our best to meet the production targets so that we won't be told off, but sometimes it [the shouting] is unbearable,” said Ei Yin Mon, another interviewee

Given poor conditions inside Myanmar factories, the weak rule of law, poor regulation and lack of respect for basic workers' rights, sourcing garments from Myanmar must not be business as usual for international companies. Taking the low road on sourcing garments in Myanmar could lead to industry accidents, social unrest and human rights violations. For workers employed in the country's garment factories, rather than benefiting from growing investment, they are likely to face greater exploitation and remain trapped in poverty.

Myanmar is at a turning point in its recent history. Decision makers and business leaders have two clear choices: they can either allow the country to join the race to the bottom by becoming the next low-cost, exploitative and unstable manufacturing market; or they can learn from tragedies like the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh and from industrial unrest as a result of poor working conditions in Cambodia and Indonesia, and implement better sourcing practices.

To help them protect garment workers' rights so that they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty, Oxfam has recommended that international sourcing companies and factories publish locations of supplier factories to enable independent monitoring and verification of conditions for workers.;

It has also asked them to support suppliers to ensure that workers receive regular training and information and ensure that price negotiations with supplier factories enable legal wages to be paid as well as enabling any negotiated wages that are higher than the minimum wage to be paid.

Oxfam also asked international sourcing companies and factories to ensure that delivery times do not require workers to do excessive overtime hours. It also suggested that they develop longer-term relationships with suppliers so that suppliers can plan for a long-term workforce and ban or severely restrict the use of short-term contracts in supplier factories.

More Oxfam News... More Apparel/Garments News - Myanmar...