Between Military Violence, Union Busting and Deteriorating Working Conditions, Myanmar’s Factory Workers are Being Squeezed From All Sides
Protesters stand behind makeshift shields during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, on 1 March 2021., (NurPhoto via AFP/Myat Thu Kyaw)
Currently, there is no right to freedom of association, no right to collective bargaining, no workers’ rights and no human rights at all in Myanmar,” says Khaing Zar Aung. “Under the dictatorship, no democratic trade union can survive."
by Kiana Duncan / EQUAL TIMES
For garment worker and labour activist Thurein Aung, the safety of his hour-long motorcycle ride to work in Yangon depends on what fighting has taken place in the days prior. When the conflict between Myanmar’s military junta and grassroots resistance forces (in the form of the People’s Defense Forces, PDF, in Myanmar’s major cities) comes close to the industrial zones, military checkpoints begin to border the main roads.
“Today, the PDF attacked the military, so now there will be more checkpoints,” he tells Equal Times. This comes at a steep price to personal safety, particularly for the many workers who ride personal or family-owned motorbikes to circumnavigate formal and informal public transport networks, which have varying degrees of reliability. “My bike was confiscated before, so I had to pay them 10,000 kyat (approximately US$5.60, as much as three times the average daily wage),” he says. There have also been reports of sexual assault and arrests at checkpoints. But in the industrial zones surrounding Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city and industrial hub, this is what workers must face to earn a living.
It has been almost one year since Myanmar’s military (known as the Tatmadaw) arrested members of parliament and the state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi before overthrowing the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) civilian government on 1 February 2021. Labour activists were some of the first organisers of large-scale protests against the coup, as well as a 22 February general strike, all of which helped power a nationwide, non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in support of the National Unity Government (NUG, a national government in exile) and in rejection of the military junta.
Against this backdrop, the activism of trade unionists has come at a hefty price. As well as the government declaring the 16-union Myanmar Labour Alliance formed in response to the coup illegal, factory workers (approximately 10 per cent of Myanmar’s workers are employed in manufacturing, and it is a sector of key economic importance) are facing a gauntlet of challenges: threats of military violence; targeted assassinations of activists; union busting attempts from factory owners cooperating with the junta; mass job cuts caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, now compounded by the coup; rising commodity prices as the valuation of the Myanmar kyat tanks; and the falling value of an already low wage, which currently teeters between the daily minimum of 4,800 kyat (approximately US$2.70) and below 3,600 kyat (approximately US$2) as unscrupulous factory owners take advantage of desperate workers.
Historic strides lost and trade unionists hunted
Almost immediately after the coup, trade unions across various sectors organised both its members and non-union workers to take to the streets to join anti-junta protests. Workers were also encouraged to show their opposition to military rule by participating in strikes, work stoppages and stay-aways. But as the weeks and months dragged on, a daily wage became a lifeline that most workers simply couldn’t afford to lose. An estimated 250,000 jobs were lost in the garment, textile and footwear sector in the first six months of 2021 alone, with workers involved in the CDM being the first in line to be dismissed.
Thurein Aung – who is still working and has so far managed to evade arrest – says that since the beginning of the coup, 11 individual factory unions in Yangon, which once totalled 1,300 members, are now down to just four. Many of its leaders are on the run. “Some fled to their villages or some other safe zones because of their deep involvement with the [resistance] struggle,” he says.
Khaing Zar Aung, treasurer at the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM, the largest labour federation in the country) and president of the Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar (IWFM), confirms that many union leaders are being “hunted” by the Tatmadaw.
For Myanmar’s trade union veterans, these tactics are an unwelcome reminder of the decades spent under brutal military rule. Following the 50-year prohibition of unions and workers’ organisations, the ten years of democratic rule between 2011 and 2021 saw significant but limited strides in labour rights in the country. For example, reforms carried out by the first post-dictatorship civilian government made trade unions legal in 2011 and established a national forum for the discussion of industrial relations in 2015. With the implementation of formalised labour rights, foreign investors began arriving in Myanmar as an untapped market.
While attempts have been made over the last 10 years to address protections against child labour, forced labour and gender discrimination, the country was still in its beginning stages of creating modern and effective policies. Without strong foundations, these fresh attempts at conciliatory protections from the NLD government were already on shaky legs before the 1 February coup.