Labour Campaigns on Burma

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Sub-title: The move marks the first major labour strike since last year’s coup, with garment factory workers reporting exploitation regarding their pay and hours
Description: "Around 2,000 workers from a garment factory in Yangon’s Zaykabar Industrial Park in Mingaladon Township went on strike on Thursday morning, declaring that violations of their basic rights had grown unbearable. The workers are employees of JW factory, which is owned by Great Glowing Investment and operated by another factory in the industrial park: ADK, or “A Dream of Kind.” They are both managed by the same Canadian nationals, according to Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration. The factories reportedly manufacture clothing for international sportswear brands including Crivit and employ nearly 7,000 people. Around 20 junta soldiers and police also arrived in the industrial park at around 11am to speak with the factory management, according to the striking workers. The outcome of the discussion was not known at the time of reporting. “Representatives from the workers’ affairs department [within the military council] came to negotiate, but that department is filled with people on [the employer’s] side,” a 22-year-old woman participating in the walkout said. The woman, who is also enrolled in her final year in Dagon University’s distance learning program, started working at the site in 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. She was hired at a pay rate of 4,800 kyat (US$2.50) per day, and 1,200 kyat ($0.65) per hour for overtime shifts—Myanmar’s minimum wage. She told Myanmar Now she was required to work 12-hour shifts six days per week, and that her employer had been pushing workers to complete more than 60 garments hourly—a quota that they could not meet. “We can barely make 45 pieces an hour but now they’re asking us to finish 62 pieces an hour,” she told Myanmar Now. “Injustice is widespread here. The workers are not able to practise any of the rights we are entitled to.” In order to meet the performance expectations set by factory management, she added that it had become difficult to take a 30-minute break for lunch, or to use the toilet during their shifts. Another 21-year-old woman from Bago participating in the strike said that she had only been paid a monthly salary of 270,000 kyat ($145) and had been required to work more than 100 overtime hours. “They keep cutting our salaries [for not meeting their requirements]. In this system, there are more punishments for us than rewards,” she said. Many of Yangon’s factories are located in townships where the military has declared martial law, including Hlaing Tharyar, North and South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan, North Okkalapa and Shwepyitha. Widespread factory closures following the February 2021 coup contributed to the loss of jobs of some 1.6m workers nationwide, according to the International Labour Organisation. Workers from Yangon’s factories were among the first members of the public to protest the coup. Some 16 labour organisations were subsequently outlawed by the junta, and members and leaders of unions charged with incitement. Ye Naing Win, the secretary general of one of the banned groups—the Coordination Committee of Trade Unions—recently described to Myanmar Now how labour rights had further deteriorated since the coup, with factory workers being inadequately compensated and unfairly fired, and complaint mechanisms under the junta typically favouring employers..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2022-07-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Global development, Rights and freedom
Sub-title: Daw Myo Aye, labour organiser and a leader of civil disobedience protests, dragged from office by army
Topic: Global development, Rights and freedom
Description: "One of Myanmar’s leading trade union leaders has been arrested as part of escalating attacks on pro-democracy figures by the military junta. Daw Myo Aye, director of Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM), one of Myanmar’s largest independent unions, is a central figure in the movement for workers’ rights. She has been one of the most prominent union leaders in the civil disobedience movement, which has been organising national strikes and protests since the military seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February. Myo Aye was dragged from her office by the army last Thursday and taken to a police station where she has been charged and detained. According to the union, she is due to be transferred to a prison in Yangon. “We lost our pillar,” said a member of staff at STUM. “But … we are going to operate with the remaining staff. We operate within the law and we provide assistance to workers in accordance with the labour law. Our organisation will not collapse because she is not here.” Thousands of people have been arrested and hundreds killed since protests against the military junta began. According to the latest figures from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), 737 people have been killed by the military, and 3,229 individuals are detained or have been sentenced. Chue Thwel, Daw Myo Aye’s daughter, said: “Since the beginning of the coup on 1 February, I thought they would come for her … I feel they arrested her to set an example.” A spokesperson for the Worker Rights Consortium, a labour rights monitoring organisation, said: “With many labour leaders already in hiding or exile, the military’s arrest of Daw Myo Aye poses a serious challenge to the vital role of the Myanmar labour movement in the struggle to restore democracy.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
2021-04-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Fishery workers in Kyonepyaw and Lemyethna townships in Irrawaddy Region staged a protest against the regional agriculture minister on Monday in Pathein, the regional capital, over what they claim is an unfair distribution of fishing rights. In a longstanding practice that dates back to the colonial period, the rights to fish in lakes in Myanmar are auctioned off by the government to private businessmen on a yearly basis. Wealthy fishery owners have long monopolized the fishing lakes, with poor laborers generally working for a daily wage. But in recent years, fishery workers have formed cooperatives and started bidding for rights. This has been widely supported by local communities, as the increased income helps to improve living standards. Generally, authorities issue two types of permit. A Type 1 permit allows the holder to fish in a lake for one year, while a Type 2 permit is issued for one to three years and allows the holder to breed fish in the lake..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-09-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: Articles 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
Source/publisher: Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Pwo-Karen
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