More than 100 Myanmar garment workers will return to work next week after the management of a Chinese-owned textile factory agreed to rehire 30 employees whose termination sparked a months-long strike, RFA reported.
The 30 workers from the Fu Yuen Garment Company Ltd. in Yangon’s Dagon Seikkan township were sacked on Aug. 20 after demanding better work conditions and an end to mistreatment by factory owners, prompting others to establish a protest camp outside the facility the following day.
On Oct. 15, striking workers clashed with thugs hired by the factory, who attacked them with iron bars, leaving 25 labourers injured, and residents have demanded that police action against those responsible. Two days later, authorities arrested two student union leaders after residents supporting the strikers fought with people still working at the factory.
The owner of the factory and striking workers signed an agreement to rehire the 30 workers the RFA report said.
Fu Yuen Garment Co Ltd is a producer of clothes for German supermarket chain Lidl and British fashion brand Joules, according to shipment records published by global trade data website Panjiva. Myanmar’s textile industry is the country’s top export earner after oil and gas, employing more than 450,000 people – where Four-fifths of the industry’s workers are women – and generating more than $2 billion in exports last year.
source: mizzima.com