Resistance hotbeds Sagaing and Magway may now be under a new form of Myanmar junta pressure, if the allegations of controls on migrant garment workers taking up employment in Yangon are true.
Garment factories in Yangon's industrial zones will no longer accept job applications from Sagaing Region Registration No. 5/ and Magway Region Registration No. 8/ holders, a garment factory worker told Mizzima on 7 August.
At the moment, Sagaing Region Registration No. 5/ and Magway Region Registration No. 8/ holders who are currently working in the garment factories in Mingaladon Township, Yangon have not been fired. However, factories are in state no longer accepting job applications from those regions, a factory source said.
“There are employees with registrations from Sagaing and Magway regions in respective factories. No one has been fired yet. However, I've heard that the factories no longer accept new applications from those areas even though factories haven’t made official announcements,” the source said.
“To be honest, I don't believe the existing workers should be fired, and in the meantime I condemn the factories’ refusal to take in new applications. Everyone needs a job right now to take care for their families,” the source explained.
According to reports that have not yet been confirmed by Mizzima, the Military Council has sent an order to the township administration offices not to accept Magway and Sagaing region registration holders applying for jobs in the garment factories in Yangon's Hlaing Thayar, Shwe Pyithar and Mingaladon townships.
In July, some factory workers with Magway and Sagaing regions registration at the Myanmar Bestex Garment Factory in Hlaing Thayar Township were fired from their jobs without any reason and were only given wages without compensation, according to the local resident in Hlaing Thayar Township.
As a result, Sagaing and Magway regions registration holders in Yangon are having difficulty submitting an overnight guest registration to authorities, according to a Sagaing Region Registration 5/ holder who wished to remain anonymous.
The Military Council has put pressure on Sagaing Region which is viewed as a tough resistance ground of the Spring Revolution aiming to attempt to oust the illegal junta from power.
There have been arrests and pressure to deny permission for 5/ and 8/ registration holders who are in other regions and states apart from Yangon, when they come to apply for work, according to a local resident in Yangon.
