YANGON- About 300 workers from Myan Mu Garment Factory in Shwelinban Industrial Zone, Hlaingthaya Township, Yangon Region, staged a protest in front of the Office of International Labour Organization (ILO) in Yankin Township yesterday afternoon.

Those workers were members of Labour Union and the protest was legally organized by the Labour Department in Myan Mu Garment Factory.

However, their employer had allegedly formed another “labour union”, resulting in the workers called on the ILO to resolve the issue.

‘The protest is aimed at solving the two different organizations for labour at the factory.  The newly formed group is a yellow Union. The reason why they made the group happen was that we staged a protest in May. At that time, the employer agreed to provide over 200 workers ferry services. Later, the employer formed another labour group of their own. We don’t want conflict to take place among the workers. The factory runs on a lot of machineries and we worry that violence among the workers would appear. We would like to inform the ILO to review the formation of such a group. I want the ILO to look in on this case,” said Thiri Tone from Myan Mu Garment Factory.

Two officials arrived at the protest, bringing in leaders from the workers to the ILO’s office for a discussion.

“We discussed the problem with the ILO but we didn’t achieve our goal,” said one of the worker leaders from Myan Mu Garment factory.

There are over 1,300 workers in the Myan Mu Garment factory with 600 workers belonging to the Labour Union while 200 workers are part of the newly formed group.

According to workers, there have been friction amongst the two groups.