Myanmar garment industry managers trained on fair HR procedures
The ILO has teamed up with twenty garment factories in Yangon to promote positive and sound industrial relations at the workplace level, and to build confidence between workers and employers through good HR practices.
Yangon (ILO News) - Over half million people are employed in Myanmar’s booming garment, textile and footwear (GTF) industry. This sector, whose workers are 90% women, offers formal jobs in a country where informality is rife.
While there is an increasing consciousness emerging in Myanmar around the importance of good industrial relations and dialogue between workers and employers as key factors for the industry’s success, often that does not translate into the factory floor practices.
The ILO Garment Industry Project (ILO-GIP) has teamed up with a number of garment factories in Yangon to promote positive and sound industrial relations at the workplace level, and to build confidence between workers and employers through good HR practices.
“One of the main objectives of this training is to let HR managers and the factory management as a whole understand the importance of putting in place fair recruitment procedures and their ethical obligation to respect fundamental principles and rights at work”, said Aye Thet Oo, National Project Coordinator of the ILO-GIP project . “This kind of events represent also a great opportunity to sensitize factories’ HR managers on the Myanmar labour law and its application”.
Through group exercises, participants compared their existing HR policies and worked together to create new ones which encompassed fundamental principles such as non-discrimination, and the prevention of child labour and forced labour, and freedom of association.
Participants were also made aware of the code of conduct of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which is the leading alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers' rights around the globe, as well as the code of conduct of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA).