At least seven union leaders at a Chinese-owned garment factory in Yangon that supplies global brand Zara have been sacked and five of them have been arrested after leading a protest for a pay rise of 800 kyats (38 US cents) a day earlier this month.
All seven were fired from their jobs at the factory on June 10 after calling for an increase in the daily wage from 4,800 to 5,600 kyats at the factory operated by Hosheng (Myanmar) Garment Co. Ltd. in Yangon’s Shwe Pyi Thar Township.
As previously reported, union leader Ma Thu Thu San, 28, was arrested on June 14 after she and other union leaders met with their employer’s representative to settle the dispute at the township’s General Administration Department (GAD) office.
“Four more were arrested on June 14, and taken to a junta interrogation camp in Shwe Pyi Thar. Two others are in hiding,” a factory worker told The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity.
The detainees comprise three women and two men.
Family members have not been able to contact them, the factory worker said.
The European Union’s delegation to Myanmar responded with a statement today.
It said: “We are concerned about the ongoing detention and welfare of a number of workers and labor rights organizers in the garment sector who have been detained … as a consequence of a labor dispute at the Hosheng Myanmar garment factory last week.”
Zara’s owner, Spanish company Inditex, will stop buying from Hosheng (Myanmar) Garment, news agency EFE reported today.
Inditex had “blocked suppliers from working with this factory [and it is] working on a gradual and responsible exit from Myanmar,” the Spanish news agency quoted the company as saying.
“The events that have occurred in this factory in recent days represent a serious breach of our Code of Conduct for manufacturers and suppliers,” Inditex told EFE.
The report did not specify which part of Inditex’s code of conduct was violated, but the first sentence of the company’s ethics statement says: “People are, without question, the most essential part of our company.”
The ethics statement ends by asserting: “In all dealings with our stakeholders, we go far beyond our legal obligations, and build relationships guided by our commitment to our ethics.”
On June 12 and 13, more than 600 workers a Hosheng Myanmar’s factory protested the firing of their union’s executive committee.
On June 13, officials and military officers visited the factory and told the striking workers that they could negotiate with factory management at the township GAD office.
The factory, which employs more than 1,000 workers, has a well-documented history of violating the rights of its workers, labor rights activists say.
One labor rights activist said: “We will continue to help them in every possible way. We plan to consult with lawyers and submit a petition. It is workers who staged a protest because the labor union leaders were fired. I don’t understand why the labor union leaders were arrested.”
Federation of Myanmar Construction and Timber Industry Trade Unions said it had reported the arrests to the International Labor Organization (ILO). Similar cases have been reported in other factories in the country, it said.
Two leaders of the trade union at Sun Apparel (Myanmar) garment factory in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar Township were arrested last week after they demanded a pay increase and better working conditions.
According to an ILO report in 2022, Myanmar lost 1.6 million jobs in 2021 following the coup, and over 300,000 of them were in the garment sector.
Myanmar was listed among the 10 worst countries for working people by the International Trade Union Confederation in 2022.
