"They are hoping to be allowed inside so they can apply for a job. Some already have work nearby, but they have heard the United Knitting Company is offering a relatively high rate for unskilled workers of K90,000 per month, and are hoping to switch. The standard monthly pay for a semi-skilled garment factory worker in Yangon is K95,000, including a base wage of roughly K40,000, a bonus of around the same value, an award and several payments made at the discretion of the factory owner, according to U Thet Hnin Aung, secretary of the Tai Yi Basic Labour Organisation and a member of the Myanmar Trade Unions Federation. ?They usually pay the bonus, but there is no security. If we?re absent for one day, they can take some of these payments away,” he said. This is likely to change at the end of next month, when a national tripartite body will finalise details of Myanmar?s first minimum wage. On June 29, the National Minimum Wage Committee announced a provisional base wage of K3600 per day, and opened a two-month window for comment. Since then, factory workers and owners have fervently debated this figure, with owners saying they will pay no more than K2500 and workers saying they will agree to a minimum of K4000. Businesspeople from China and South Korea have threatened to shut their factories in Yangon if the K3600 wage is enacted, saying that costs are already high due to low productivity and poor infrastructure. For the workers, inflation and unstable commodity prices mean they may not be able to survive on less. On the current wage, many workers in Yangon are forced to live outside factory walls in structures built from bamboo and plastic sheeting. Some live beside large pools of stagnant water ? breeding grounds for dengue-carrying mosquitoes. Healthcare options are limited and expensive..."