Burmese migrant workers
Individual Documents
Sub-title:
They say the junta must first ensure their labor rights, while others refuse to fund a coup regime.
Description:
"Myanmar nationals working abroad say they won’t pay income tax to their country’s junta as required by a newly passed law unless they are guaranteed protection of their labor rights, while others oppose funding what they see as an illegitimate military regime.
Myanmar’s Union Taxation Law of 2023, signed by junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, went into effect on Oct. 1, requiring migrant workers to pay a portion of their income to the regime. The new law ends an exemption that had been in effect since 2012.
On Dec. 13, the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok announced a tax rate of 2% on the earnings of migrant workers in Thailand.
But workers in Thailand are questioning why they should be forced to make the payments when they are afforded little assistance from the junta in protecting their rights abroad.
“We’ve witnessed many migrant workers suffering violations of their labor rights, but they don’t receive any assistance from Myanmar officials,” said Kyaw Zeya, a Myanmar national who works in Thailand. “So we won’t pay taxes without any protections.”
Migrant workers in Thailand told RFA Burmese that they are already struggling to make ends meet on low wages and that the new income tax will mean additional burdens.
Salaries for migrant workers in factories, workshops, agriculture and livestock, construction, and services is fixed at 7,500 baht (US$220) per month, meaning they will now be required to pay 150 baht (US$5) to the junta from each monthly paycheck.
In Japan, the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo also recently announced a 2% tax on migrant worker incomes.
Under this taxation scheme, a Myanmar national in Japan who earned 200,000 yen (US$1,385) or more each month had to pay the junta 4,000 yen (US$30), while those who earned less had to pay 3,000 yen (US$20). Following resistance to the scheme, the requirements were reduced to 3,000 yen and 1,000 yen (US$5), respectively.
And while labor rights are generally better protected in Japan, Myanmar nationals working in the country told RFA that they prefer to pay their income taxes to the host nation, where the money won’t be spent on funding a military that kills and arrests those who object to its seizure of power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat.
“Those [Myanmar nationals] who need to extend their passport cannot avoid the tax,” said Ye Zaw Htet, who lives and works in Japan. “But I refuse to pay a tax that can be used to harm people in Myanmar.”
Migrant workers who have paid the tax receive a certificate, which is needed to renew one’s passport, apply for labor ID cards and request certain official documents.
Funding a civil war
Analysts RFA spoke with said that the junta wants additional revenue to fund its purchase of aviation fuel, arms and ammunition, even while Myanmar has seen its economy contract and foreign investment vanish amidst a raging civil war.
With an estimated 5 million Myanmar nationals working in Thailand, the junta can expect to earn nearly 750 million baht (US$22 million) per month at a rate of 150 baht per worker.
From Singapore, where around 300,000 Myanmar nationals work and are required to pay a tax rate of 2%, the junta can expect to earn some 2.4 million Singapore dollars (US$1.8 million) per month.
One Myanmar citizen in Singapore who is working as a technician and spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said they will only pay taxes to a government with a legitimate mandate.
“We aren’t talking about a tax payment,” the worker said. “We will pay taxes to both our home and host countries for the development of our country under an elected government. But we aren’t willing to pay the coup regime.”
Sein Htay, an economist, said that regardless of how it is generated, government revenue “should be spent for public development programs and services, not for war expenses,” and certainly not to fund a civil war.
Attempts by RFA to contact Myanmar’s embassies in Tokyo, Bangkok and Singapore, as well as the junta’s Planning and Finance Ministry, for their response to criticism of the taxation plan went unanswered by the time of publishing.
However, Nyunt Win, the permanent secretary of the junta’s Labor Ministry, characterized the tax scheme as a way to pay for “work permits” for Myanmar nationals overseas.
“Work permits abroad have no connection to the government in the homeland,” he said. “The tax is needed to pay to the home country.”
In addition to the recent taxation plan, the junta has forced migrant workers to hand over 25% of their salaries to the regime when remitting money home through official transfer channels.
Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand staged a protest against the monthly 2% taxation plan in front of the United Nations’ office in Bangkok on Dec. 17, which received a message of support from the Ministry of Labor under the country’s shadow National Unity Government..."
Source/publisher:
"Radio Free Asia" (USA)
Date of publication:
2024-01-04
Date of entry/update:
2024-01-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Burmese migrant workers, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
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Description:
"The regime’s Labor Ministry has ordered employment agencies to submit their lists of Myanmar migrant workers to the central bank and Foreign Ministry.
The order was issued late last month in the wake of new rules requiring migrant workers to remit a quarter of their wages through the junta-run banking system.
There are 484 local and foreign employment agencies in Myanmar, according to the ministry. It threatened to take legal action against 70 agencies it said had still not submitted migrant worker lists.
Agencies were required to submit the lists every three or six months under the now ousted civilian NLD government, but the junta has changed this to the first five days of every month. Non-compliant agencies will be suspended, warned, and then dissolved if they fail to submit lists again, said the ministry.
“The difference now is that we have to submit the lists to the Central Bank of Myanmar and Foreign Ministry too,” an employment agency manager said.
The two junta agencies will presumably use the lists to check that remittances are being sent back home, the manager added.
“They are starved of foreign currency. So, they are targeting remittances of migrant workers by putting pressure on employment agencies.”
Last month, the regime demanded that expatriate workers remit at least 25 percent of their foreign currency income back home through the country’s banking system.
Migrant workers who do not comply will be barred from working overseas for three years after their current work permit expires, the announcement warned. The regulation took effect on September 1.
On September 23, the regime made changes to the tax law, forcing Myanmar migrant workers to pay a tax of at least 10 percent on incomes earned in other countries.
The top destinations for Myanmar migrant workers are Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea, under memoranda of understanding between governments. Recruitment of Myanmar workers in Thailand and Malaysia is now declining, according to employment agencies..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2023-10-12
Date of entry/update:
2023-10-12
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, Migration of labour to Burma, Non-ILO Reports on Forced Recruitment in Burma
Language:
more
Description:
"ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံရောက် မြန်မာအလုပ်သမားများ ပိုမိုခက်ခဲကျပ်တည်းအောင် ခေါင်းပုံဖြတ်ခွင့် ဖန်တီးပေးနေသည့် အကြမ်း ဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု ၏ မည်သူမည်ဝါ ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သက်သေခံလက်မှတ် (Certificate of Identity – CI) သက်တမ်းတိုးထုတ်ပေးခြင်း လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်နှင့်ယင်းလုပ်ငန်းစဉ် အကောင်အထည်ဖေါ်မှုတွင် ပူးပေါင်း ဆောင်ရွက်နေသည့် အဖွဲ့အစည်း၊ ကုမ္ပဏီနှင့် အေဂျင်စီတို့အား အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာန မှ ပြင်းထန်စွာ ရှုံ့ချကြောင်း ကြေညာချက်..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Labour - National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of publication:
2022-01-23
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-23
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
256.34 KB
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Sub-title:
Around 2,000 Myanmar migrant workers have been stranded in a lockdown in the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province, Laos, without work or money for rent or food.
Description:
"Myanmar migrant workers stranded at a special economic zone (SEZ) in northern Laos catering to Chinese gamblers staged a rare protest last week in a bid to return home amid an outbreak of the coronavirus, saying they haven’t been paid in months and can no longer afford food or rent.
Up to 5,000 workers of different nationalities are employed at the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province, which lies along Laos’ shared borders with Thailand and Myanmar.
Bokeo is a hotspot for coronavirus transmission, and the SEZ’s main tourist draw—the Kings Romans Casino—has seen business plummet during the pandemic. The SEZ is now guarded by Chinese security guards assigned to prevent workers from leaving amid a lockdown aimed at preventing further spread of the disease.
Hundreds of protesting Myanmar workers on Friday demanded that Lao and SEZ authorities allow them to return home or provide them with food and financial aid enabling them to remain in Laos, workers told RFA’s Lao Service.
“Because of the lockdown, we have not been paid for months. We have been abandoned,” one protesting worker said on Monday. “We have no money of our own to pay rent or buy food, and we’ve received no financial aid.”
“In addition, we have to pay for COVID-19 testing too,” he said.
“It’s calm now,” a Lao worker in the SEZ told RFA, adding that soldiers and police officers had come to the SEZ on Friday to break the protest up. “They protested because many of them lost their jobs in construction and at restaurants in the SEZ because of the lockdown," he said.
“They want either to go home or to get some help."
“They protested because they have been jobless and confined in the Golden Triangle SEZ for months and haven’t received any aid,” another Lao worker said. “They protested even though the authorities told them not to,” he added.
Laos has recorded eight deaths from nearly 8,400 coronavirus cases.
'Business as usual'
Also speaking to RFA, the owner of a small shop outside the SEZ noted that another outbreak of COVID-19 had recently hit the SEZ, prompting the latest lockdown.
“Many Burmese workers have families including young children, and they can’t afford to live here without working. So they want to go home to Myanmar,” he said.
Reached for comment, a member of the Golden Triangle SEZ management team said that the Myanmar workers’ protest had ended, and that “it’s business as usual again.”
“The protest was initiated by some kind of misunderstanding about COVID-19 testing,” he said. “The SEZ management team negotiated with the protesters for two hours, and then the protesters agreed to go back to their dormitory and the management agreed to take care of the workers.”
Some go home
After Friday’s protest, Lao authorities informed Myanmar border officials that some of the Myanmar workers were planning to go home, “and on Monday at least half of the nearly 2,000 Burmese workers in the SEZ have been allowed to return,” the management team member said.
“As for the rest of the Burmese workers, their employers in the SEZ have promised to look after them during the current lockdown from Aug. 4 to Aug. 18,” he said.
Companies and employers in the SEZ have a duty to look after the welfare of their workers, agreed an official in the Bokeo provincial administration with responsibility for overseeing the Golden Triangle SEZ.
“And their workers can always complain to our authorities if their employers don’t keep their promises,” he said.
Lao workers in the SEZ who want to return home to their own provinces should register with the appropriate authorities, the management team member said, adding that around 150 Lao workers have already done so.
“They can go home after the lockdown ends in about two weeks. But during these first two weeks during the lockdown, no one can get out,” he said.
In May last year, approximately 6,000 Lao and foreign workers were present in the SEZ, with about half that number left in the SEZ today, the management team member said. Of that number, around 2,000 came from Myanmar, with the remaining number made up by Lao workers and Chinese..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of publication:
2021-08-09
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Burmese migrant workers, Humanitarian assistance to migrant workers from Burma
Language:
more
Description:
"Workers in Cambodia and Myanmar are facing severe hardships as the spread of the coronavirus decimates their country’s economies and causes widespread factory closures, prompting them to take to the streets to demand assistance from their governments.
In Cambodia, where the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19—the disease caused by the coronavirus—has held at 122 with no deaths in recent weeks, more than 100 workers held a protest in front of the Hulu Garment factory in the capital Phnom Penh on Monday demanding full benefits following a suspension of operations on March 24 due to a decrease in orders from international retailers.
The workers, representing around 10 percent of employees, have been protesting since April 22—except for a break during the weekend—after factory management a day earlier informed them that the facility would close down for good and asked them to quit with the promise of some, but not all, of their benefits.
Worker Heoun Hak told RFA’s Khmer Service that she and other employees are demanding that the factory inform them whether the closure will be permanent, noting that if so, management would be required to pay them full benefits, in accordance with a government order..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of publication:
2020-04-27
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-28
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Language:
more
Description:
"...MAP Multi-Media supports all projects at MAP to produce communication materials in migrant languages to disseminate information to migrant communities on issues of policies, laws, rights, and health. The media formats used include MAP’s two community radio stations at Chiang Mai and Mae Sot, printed materials, audio and video, websites and social media.... This magazine contents are lobour rights in Thailand, Labor Protection Act BE2541, May day, international migrant day, labor exchange, compensation..."
Source/publisher:
MAP Foundation
Date of publication:
2006-11-00
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-02
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, Migrant workers from Burma : general and mixed articles and reports
Language:
Format :
PDF
Size:
3.59 MB
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Description:
"Myanmar dispatched over 234,000 MoU workers to Thailand last year, according to the Labour Department.
The number of MoU workers has increased though the factories faced the shutdowns due to the market restrictions caused by the violations of human rights in the marine product factories in Thailand. Due to the shutdown of factories, some Myanmar migrant workers become jobless and go home.
The number of MoU workers who left for Thailand reached 31,828 in 2014, 52,765 in 2015, 97,998 in 2016, 145,161 in 2017 and over 150,000 in 2018.
U Moe Kyaw, head of YaungchiOo Labour Affairs Office said: “There are more than 400 factories and plants in Mae Sot. In addition to the factories, more than 250,000 Myanmar migrant workers are working in construction sites, farming, housemaid services and shops. Thai government has fixed 310 baht for a eight-hour working day in Mae Sot. Myanmar migrant workers from around five factories earn their salaries fully. But Myanmar migrant workers from other factories and work sites get 150-200 baht only. They also face the violations in health and social affairs.”..."
Source/publisher:
Eleven Media Group (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-01-12
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-12
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, Labour migration: global and regional studies, Migrant workers' registration in Thailand - articles, statements, texts and guidelines, Thailand-Burma relations
Language:
more
Description:
"Myanmar labor attaché U San Maung Oo, who represented migrants in Thailand, has been charged by the Anti-Corruption Commission of Myanmar (ACC) over claims he took thousands of bribes.
The labor attaché has been accused of asking for about 4.4 million Thai baht (US$144,000, 220.16 million kyats) from 28 overseas employment agencies in exchange for approving labor demand letters and for sending workers to recruitment agencies.
The ACC said it interviewed witnesses and studied documents and bank accounts in Myanmar and Thailand.
U San Maung Oo was found to have abused his power and asked for bribes from recruitment agencies, said the ACC.
He worked at the labor office in Bangkok from December 2017 until August this year.
The ACC also said U San Maung Oo collected 100 baht from agencies for each worker and also took bribes from the employment agencies through his assistants, U Than Htike Soe and U Saw Pyae Nyein..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication:
2019-11-07
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-12
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, Migrant workers' registration in Thailand - articles, statements, texts and guidelines, Thailand-Burma relations
Language:
more
Description:
"About 2,000 workers including Myanmar workers became jobless as their luggage factory near Bangkok of Thailand closed down, according to Hittaing (place to voice complaints) based in Thailand where migrant workers usually come to voice their complaints and grievances.
The luggage factory in Chonburi Province near Bangkok reportedly shut down on October 31 citing losses.
Those working at that factory were from Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, and they are now jobless.
Of the Myanmar workers, some worked after signing memorandums of understanding.
The factory stopped operation about 12 days before its shutdown. Factory officials announced closure after calling a meeting.
Following the factory closure, activists and Myanmar labour attachés to Thailand said they would try to make sure that the workers who lost their jobs get the benefits they deserve..."
Source/publisher:
"Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2019-11-05
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-06
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers, Factory workers, Migrant workers' registration in Thailand - articles, statements, texts and guidelines
Language:
more
Description:
"At least 109 illegal Myanmar migrant workers have been sent back to homeland from Thailand, the Myanmar immigration authorities said on Thursday.
The migrant workers including nine women were handed over by Thailand's Ranong Immigration Department through Kawthoung border gate in southern Tanintharyi region on Wednesday.
The workers, who were expelled by the Thai authorities for being found with expired visas and without proper documents, were repatriated after paying penalties under Thai law.
With healthcare provided, they were being sent back to their respective homes, the immigration department said.
In July and August, a total of 258 Myanmar migrant workers were repatriated to homeland from Thailand via the same border gate.
Most of the workers are from Tanintharyi, Yangon, Bago and Ayeyarwady regions and Mon and Rakhine states..."
Source/publisher:
"Xinhua" (China)
Date of publication:
2019-09-26
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-26
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
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Description:
"Agriculture accounts for 26 per cent of Myanmar’s GDP and employs almost half of the
country’s workforce.1 It is the primary source of
livelihood for most people living in rural areas.2
Migration for work is also common in Myanmar and growing even more so: the country’s
rapid growth in recent years has coincided
with a marked increase in both internal and
international migration. Migration is tightly
linked to agricultural work: many migrants
move from rural to urban areas and from agriculture to other employment sectors. This
trend is coinciding with a general transition in
Myanmar’s economy away from agriculture
and towards industry and services.
This briefing paper draws on findings from
the CHIME research project to look at how
agricultural work drives migration, and how
migration affects the agricultural sector. It
identifies opportunities for policymakers to
help make agriculture and migration
promote sustainable, equitable development..."
Source/publisher:
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Date of publication:
2017-01-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-06-21
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
IOM Burma/Myanmar, Labour migration: global and regional studies, Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Smallholder farming and farmers in Burma/Myanmar, Agricultural Land, Burmese migrant workers
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.16 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
"As Burma?s official press reported the dramatic escape of two Burmese nationals forced to work aboard a Thai fishing vessel, countless others continued to go abroad in search of work despite the highly publicized perils of doing so..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy", Vol. 10, No. 6, July-August 2002
Date of publication:
2002-08-00
Date of entry/update:
2010-12-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese migrant workers
Language:
English
more
Description:
"Burmese workers in Singapore make great sacrifices to make ends meet.
With its own economy wracked by decades of mismanagement, many Burmese workers look overseas to make their financial dreams come true. But for workers wishing to jump Burma?s sinking economic ship to go work in Singapore, they must first clear a series of legal hurdles, leaving many migrant workers wondering if making the journey is worth the effort..."
Moe Kyaw
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" Vol. 10, No. 6, July-August 2002
Date of publication:
2002-08-00
Date of entry/update:
2003-06-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
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