The women surviving labour rights violations in Myanmar’s garment sector

The names of our sources have been changed in this story to protect their security Sabai, a woman working at a garment factory in one of Yangon’s industrial zones, is only allowed one 30-minute lunch break and one 10-minute snack break during a shift that otherwise consists of 12 hours of constant sewing. “When I get home, I’m just exhausted. I don't want to do anything else,” Sabai said, sighing from fatigue after another week working from 8 am to 8 pm, six days in a row. Her day is not over after she returns to the room where she lives, however, as she still has to do household chores like laundry as well as prepare dinner and pack lunch to take to work the next morning. Sabai goes to bed late, and usually anxious about being able to wake up early enough for the next day of work. Sabai, a woman in her 20s originally from Bago, said she would prefer not to work overtime on days when she feels exhausted, but has no choice. “Even when you're really sick, it's hard to take leave. And if you miss one day, you'll be fined about 60,000 kyat [US $29],” she said. Overwork Among approximately 600,000 workers in garment factories in Myanmar, women struggling for their families’ livelihoods usually face the harshest forms of injustice, insecurity, and abuses of their rights in the workplace. Some factories even threaten to fire employees who refuse to work overtime, workers said. When their employers call overtime, they said, they sometimes have to work more than 16 hours, from opening until past midnight. Among garment workers, this extended overtime is called "all light" (working until midnight) or "all night" (working until dawn). Factories tend to require these overtime hours about four to five days a month, specifically when deadlines are approaching to send out large shipments, according to the garment workers. “On overtime days, we get so sleep-deprived that we feel dizzy and get headaches. But we still go to work knowing we won’t get our salary until the end of the month, and at least we’ll get some overtime pay immediately,” said Hnin Hsi, a worker in her 30s at the Dong Tai Myanmar factory. Female garment workers say that during these overtime hours, they are forced to catch what little sleep they can at their workstations next to their sewing machines. A workplace in an industrial zone in Yangon's Hlaing Tharyar Township in 2017 (Photo - AFP) Workers said that if they take leave for reasons other than health, their employers often deduct various benefits such as a regular attendance bonus. Hnin Hsi said that employers pressure the workers to come even when they are experiencing pain and weakness during their menstrual periods. On weeknights when the overtime hours extend past midnight, the women are not even able to return home, and instead continue working from the regular morning shift until 8pm the next day, some workers said. When overtime extends past midnight on a Friday, according to Sabai, employees stay at work until 4pm on Saturday rather than 8pm. “By that time in the week, they can’t call for overtime. If they did, workers would just faint,” Sabai explained. Female garment workers can earn from 430,000 to 500,000 kyat (between US $200 and $240) per month. At a time of high living costs in Myanmar, this salary is barely enough to cover regular expenses, including rent, causing some large families to fall into debt. A Yangon factory worker’s family having a meal (Photo: Ko Kan Kaung/ Myanmar Now) Garment factories reportedly received more orders than usual during this year’s rainy season, workers said, resulting in employers calling for more overtime days since late April following Thingyan, Myanmar’s New Year Water Festival holidays. The military’s renewed enforcement of conscription for military service, as well as the struggling economy and inflation of the national currency, have also induced some of the workforce in the garment industry among other young people to go abroad this year in search of more promising opportunities. The shortage of workers inside Myanmar combined with the increase in factory orders has created major burdens for skilled workers, according to Ei, a spokesperson for the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM), a labour rights advocacy group. “The effect of the labour shortages has essentially been to force skilled workers to do double the work,” she said. Due to the unavoidable overtime and general stress from work, female garment workers say they are experiencing health problems, often having to leave after fainting during long shifts in factories with poor ventilation. Women in the garment industry have been suffering from dizziness, aches, and other adverse health effects due to the mandatory overtime, according to Ei, who added that the requirement to work into the night has also led to a rise in incidents of male employees harassing their female coworkers. There is also little accommodation made for pregnant women, she said. “They even have pregnant women working ‘all light’ and ‘all night’ shifts. Even when pregnant women say they can’t work, the employers pressure them, saying ‘Don't come to work tomorrow’ if they refuse,” Ei explained, adding, “There have even been cases of pregnant workers miscarrying because they had to work while heavily pregnant.” Women sewing in a garment factory in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Industrial Zone in 2015 (Photo - EPA) Violations The conditions, practices, and hours described by the garment sector employees appear to violate several stipulations of the Myanmar Labour Law of 2020. A guide to the law prepared by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that adult workers in factories should not work more than five consecutive hours without a break of at least 30 minutes.The ILO’s guide also says that the total length of working hours and rest periods on a given working day should not exceed 10 hours. Workers should also not work more than 12 hours of overtime in a week, according to the guide, but in exceptional cases may be allowed to work up to 16 hours of overtime. The ILO also says overtime should not extend past midnight. Despite the accounts from workers saying these rules are broken routinely, a businessman and member of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA) denied that the overtime practices described by workers exist in Myanmar’s garment factories. “Our factory doesn’t have overtime calls until midnight. It's quite risky to call workers at night these days, as overnight guest registration inspections are also conducted even at factories,” he said. The military junta previously ordered business owners to submit the personal information of all Yangon-based garment workers by the end of last month, prompting concerns that workers would be conscripted into mandatory military service. The garment sector businessman acknowledged that factories were still struggling to find enough workers due to a labour shortage in the country. Although the manufacturers should be thriving amid a large volume of orders, he added, the shortage of workers had created conditions in which it was difficult to fulfil all orders on schedule, while workers had the advantage and could choose from many factories for their employment. Notwithstanding this account of conditions in the garment sector, the Myanmar Industry Craft Service-Trade Unions Federation (MICS-TUsF) alleged in June that Hengda and New Talent garment factories in Yangon—which produce clothing for the internationally known clothing brand H&M—have engaged in illegal overtime practices. According to an official from MICS-TUsF, most factories in Myanmar's garment industry sector are calling for overtime beyond the permitted hours, with some even calling for overtime on Sundays in violation of the rule that Sundays should be reserved as rest days. Workers demonstrating for labour rights near an industrial zone in Yangon in 2020 (Photo - EPA) No action has been taken in response to the complaints workers have filed with junta-controlled labour offices about illegal overtime requirements, according to the MICS- TUsF official. “If even the factories producing for world-famous brands have forced overtime, there's nothing to stop factories that are producing for lesser-known brands,” he said. A report released by the Ethical Trading Initiative in September 2022 argued that since the military coup of the previous year, workers’ basic rights in Myanmar's garment sector had been practically unprotected, and that it had become nearly unheard-of for any business in the sector to comply with human rights standards. In addition, a survey conducted by the London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) monitoring the garment sector in Myanmar from February 2022 to February 2023 reported 212 labour rights violations in 124 factories. Pay cuts, wrongful terminations, pressure to work overtime, and overwork were the issues that workers in Myanmar reported most commonly, according to the BHRRC survey. The release of these findings prompted several global apparel brands—including H&M, the Inditex Group (which produces several world-famous clothing brands including Zara), Primark, the London-based Tesco PLC, Marks & Spencer, and Japan's Uniqlo—to announce reductions or total suspensions of their operations in Myanmar. The labour shortage in Myanmar has given workers little advantage in negotiating for the observance of their rights amid economic conditions have only become more strained since the military took power in Myanmar in 2021. Because they need to preserve their livelihoods, there is no choice for women working in garment factories but to try to fulfil their employers’ exacting demands for overtime. Throughout different eras in Myanmar, low-income households and the working class have been oppressed in various ways, but they have to continue to work hard for their families’ survival, Sabai said. “I'm only doing this job because there’s no work in my hometown. It’s not easy,” Sabai said. “But if I didn’t have this job, how would I feed my family?”

The women surviving labour rights violations in Myanmar’s garment sector

Amid a labour shortage and high demand for clothing production, employers are flouting regulations limiting hours and overtime, pushing the industry’s underpaid, largely female workforce to exhaustion

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