Shwe Pyi Thar factory owners seek decision on strike

The owners of a factory in Shwe Pyi Thar township will ask the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council to resolve a dispute with hundreds of its workers, about 30 of whom launched a hunger strike late last month.

Workers at the San Kaung factory went on strike in the first week of May, calling for the reinstatement of almost 50 of their colleagues who had been fired. San Kaung’s management has so far been unable to reach a deal with the workers. The factory, which produces plastic bags for food products, particularly rice, is operating with just a quarter of the 1800 employees it had before the strike.

San Kaung director U Khin Maung Myat said the company would respect the decision of the Dispute Settlement Arbitration Council.

“We can’t negotiate with [the workers]. We already told them which [of their demands] we can agree to but they are stubborn and insist that we agree to everything that they want,” he said. “You can’t call that negotiating. Why don’t they just give me an order instead of pretending they want to negotiate?”

He said that while almost 1400 fewer workers are on the factory floor, only about 200 workers are on strike or refusing to work. The remainder, he said, are afraid to work while their colleagues are protesting.

“The protesting workers are threatening the other workers to stop them from working. That’s why the other workers do not dare come to the factory,” he said.

Ma Myat Soe Soe Zin, a 23-year-old worker, said 16 workers went on a hunger strike on May 26. “Today about 30 people are participating in the hunger strike,” she said on May 30. “We won’t give up until the factory’s management accepts our requests.”

The workers say they launched the strike because the management fired 49 workers from the factory without explanation.

However, the strikers also made several demands in addition to reinstating the fired workers, including allowing the factory’s union to resolve disputes between management and workers, promising not to fire workers without a valid reason and not to punish workers for going on strike.

Ma Mya Thet Thu, 20, said three hunger strikers had been sent to Insein Hospital for treatment. Two have rejoined the group, while one remains in hospital.

“The workers are getting weak as the strike progresses,” she said. “We started our protest in early May. ... At first we protested in front of the factory from 8am to 5pm but on May 26 the protest leaders decided to keep it up 24 hours a day and on May 27 some of the workers went on a hunger strike.

“But I think that the owners won’t care about us, even if we die.”

U Win Tun Aung, head of the factory’s union, told The Myanmar Times that factory management had refused to work with the union, even though it had been formed according to the law and approved by the government.

“We weren’t told anything when they fired these workers. Even if the workers did something wrong that meant there was grounds for dismissing them, the management should have let us know. When we asked them for a reason, the management didn’t respond. They always treat us like we are nothing and we shouldn’t be told what is happening in the factory,” he said.

He said that management had attempted to negotiate with the union on May 22 but the talks failed to yield any result.

“They agreed to some small requests, like to upgrade facilities in the factory. But they refused to re-hire the 49 workers and didn’t agree to deal with worker’s union in future disputes. They are our two main requests and if we can’t get any agreement on them our protest will have been meaningless.”

The workers also asked for a K20,000-a-month pay rise but management said the company could not afford it, he said.

But U Khin Maung Myat said the workers had been fired for legitimate reasons and the dis-missals had been reported to the Ministry of Labour.

“We fired some [permanent] workers ... because they were breaking the contract between workers and management. And we told some new workers there were no positions for them after their probation period ended, and we stopped hiring some casual workers paid on a daily basis. The total number [of fired workers] is 47, not 49,” U Khin Maung Myat said.

“We did everything under the law and it is all documented. We can prove everything.”