‘If the Military Leaders Win, There Will Be No Unions’: Myanmar Garment Workers on the Strikes Against the Coup

Ma Moe Sandar Myint, Ma Ei Ei Phyu, Ma Tin Tin Wai

[March 11, 2021: Despite a vicious crackdown that has left scores of protesters dead, the worker-led movement against the military coup in Myanmar continues to rock the country. Jacobin spoke with Ma Moe Sandar Myint, Ma Ei Ei Phyu, and Ma Tin Tin Wai, three female garment workers who helped organize another general strike this week. Ma Moe Sandar Myint is an organizer with the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar. Ma Ei Ei Phyu is an organizer for the Federation of General Workers Myanmar. Ma Tin Tin Wai is an organizer for the Federation of General Workers Myanmar. This interview was conducted by Michael Haack and Nadi Hlaing.

Days before Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party was deposed in a coup last month, Jacobin conducted an interview with the head of the Federation of General Workers of Myanmar (FGWM), Ma Moe Sandra Myint. At the time, we didn’t yet know the role the young female garment workers that Moe organizes would play in the anti-coup resistance. But in the following days, as work stoppages, walkouts, and marches rocked the streets, garment workers proved crucial to the movement against military rule. On February 22, the growing momentum culminated in a nationwide general strike with garment workers at the center. They demanded the reinstatement of the government of Aung San Suu Kyi (who, despite enabling the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, remains popular among Burmese workers for ending military rule and expanding labor rights).

Myanmar’s garment industry is massive, having swelled to six hundred thousand workers in the last decade, and in recent years it has been hit by wildcat strikes and militant labor organizing. Now, workers are applying the know-how they acquired from years of labor organizing to the struggle against a return to military rule. Organizing at the points of production and distribution, and grinding the country to a halt, may be the only hope to force the military to the negotiating table. And whether workers can access necessities while continuing to strike may make or break the anti-coup movement. Workers’ unions and federations have, with some success, called on landlords to withhold rent collection for those participating in the strikes. Unions have also called on international brands like The North Face and H&M to pressure factories not to fire those who miss work due to their involvement in the movement.

On the evening of February 27, Jacobin caught up with FGWM’s Ma Ei Ei Phyu and Ma Tin Tin Wai just after labor organizations were officially banned. The next day saw the bloodiest crackdown to date. By nightfall on the 28th, at least eighteen people had been killed, and the slogan “my head is bloodied, but unbowed” emerged. Protests have shown little sign of slowing even as the crackdown escalates, with another thirty-eight protesters slain on March 3 and casualties among protesters becoming a near-daily occurrence. Just yesterday, on the evening of the first day of another general strike, we were able to catch up with Ma Moe Sandar Myint, who addressed some of the same questions as her comrades.]

Michael Haack and Nadi Hlaing (MH/NH): How does it make you feel to know that the garment workers were some of the first to strike against the coup?

Ma Ei Ei Phyu (MEEP): I can’t even find a suitable word for my feeling. I feel very satisfied with our work. The garment workers ignited the protest.

Ma Moe Sandar Myint (MMSM): The people are proud of us. On day one of the strike, the workers came with their own lunch. Later, they didn’t have to because the people provided them food.

MH/NH: What are the implications of the coup for workers?

MEEP: The NLD didn’t create absolute protections for labor, but there were some huge developments. It gave us hope to improve our wages. Before the NLD held office, we didn’t know what labor law or labor rights were. We were arbitrarily dismissed by employers for complaints. Under the military dictatorship, our labor rights will be violated. We can’t accept the dictatorship at all. Even if we will be dismissed from the factory because of striking and protests, we will fight until the end.

Ma Tin Tin Wai (MTTW): We are fighting for the whole country. If the military leadership is to win, there will be no labor unions. And if there are labor unions, they will not be real labor unions: the government will intervene, and the union will become only for show.

MMSM: Workers want democracy because we have thoughts, and we are not passive. We need freedom to ask for workers’ rights—protection and benefits. Only democracy can provide that.

MH/NH: How did the strike first get organized?

MEEP: We held a meeting for all workers and started talking about labor rights, rights that we are losing under the dictatorship. On February 5, the workers decided to march. We were faced with police. I was very afraid, but I also felt recognitionfrom the public that made us feel very important. I started crying because of the public support for the workers. When we got back to our hostel, the police were in front of the factory asking us who was the leader. So, even now, I am hiding. All the unionists are hiding.

MTTW: Starting on February 1, we held an emergency meeting. On February 5, we started a campaign inside the factory. We sang the national anthem and other famous songs from history and the ’88 revolution.

Workers wore a red ribbon on their clothes. All factory employees, even the high-level positions, participated. The only trouble was, we didn’t have enough red cloth, so we needed to request red cloth from our factory and use the factory’s cutter to cut it. Normally the lunch break is thirty minutes. The factory union announced the workers should finish their lunch in ten minutes and participate in the campaign for the other twenty minutes.

We decided to protest on February 6, joining other groups such as students. We held sit-in protests on the road of the Sagaing industrial zone, marched to the Central Bank of Myanmar and the local ILO [International Labour Organization] office, and put pressure on the brands.

In Hlaing Tharyar there are about 300 factories. Almost all of the factories participated. If a factory has a union inside, the union organized the strike, and the workers all joined. In the factories without a union, the workers individually got their leave and also participated in the protest. So the crowd was huge.

MMSM: When we heard about the coup, we didn’t have the internet for the first half of the day because it was cut off by the military. So we bought a radio and we listened to the news. Our union chair discussed and coordinated with other union factories and held an emergency meeting with all the unions. We needed to figure how to fight the military. We couldn’t do it alone; we would need the participation of the whole population.

We were contacted by student activists. We said, “If you are interested in combining efforts, let’s meet. We are used to strikes at the factories, but we have never struck against the military with guns. We have not engaged in political strikes before. Since you have a lot of followers and experience with political protests, let’s collaborate.”

MH/NH: What was the significance of the general strike?

MEEP: Every group in the public joined in the protest as well. The people resisted this system founded in blood. So the general strike was very important to let the leader know, “We don’t want you. And we all are against the dictatorship.”

MH/NH: What are some challenges to organizing?

MMSM: There are plenty of challenges. Parents often do not condone women and girls participating in politics or union activities. Our parents are farmers and we were born in villages. We were raised with village traditional norms, like a girl had to wear her longyi all the way to the toe and cover up. Women were discouraged from going out at night. When I first started engaging in workers protest, my parents were worried. But my husband is very supportive of my union engagement, and he’s always encouraging me.

Workers do not receive pay for the time that they are on strike, and this creates a problem with paying rent. Some landlords sympathize with workers and have reduced the rent for the period when they are on strike, while in other cases workers have been evicted.

MH/NH: What would you like our readers to know about the situation on the ground?

MTTW: We need international support for the current movement. In the ’88 revolution, a lot of people were killed by the military and I don’t want such a situation again.

When I heard about the people that had been killed and shot by the military, I became very, very angry—I wanted to shout out to the international community to help the workers of Myanmar.

MSSM: Some workers have been fired, or had their salaries cut. Among those fired are pregnant women, women with young children, and women who are breadwinners of the family. The rent issue, combined with the factories letting go of these workers, put them in a dire situation financially.

The ILO Commission stipulates that owners cannot pressure workers. Workers are free to exercise their rights. We want people to pressure brands such as Adidas, Zara, and H&M to ensure that workers are guaranteed their rights to protest. Since we issued our statement to the companies, we haven’t heard any reaction from them so far.

Media is also necessary. We need more media attention on our workers’ efforts and the risks they are taking to take to the streets. The more people know about us and our efforts, the more protection we have in case something happens to us.

MEEP: I am from a farmers’ family in the Ayeyarwady Region. In my youth, the government made farmers give a duty fee of some rice. When I was in grade four, our family couldn’t make enough rice because of the weather. So the police arrested our grandfather and our cousin. My brother, sister, and I needed to be hidden and we faced hunger.

Even after being released from prison, my grandfather still had to give rice to the government. But we could not make enough. So we had to hand over our land and we became very poor. My brother and I had to drop out of school. My father took me to the city, where I did not pass the matriculation exam.

So that is the reason why I really hate the military dictatorship. We experienced lots of bad things under that system. I can’t allow this to happen to this generation, to my son and my daughter. That’s the reason why I want to fight.

MMSM: We are not doing this to gain power, or positions. Workers know how to live under pressure and how to fight against injustice. We cannot live under military rule. We’d rather die than live under oppression. Seeing the death of the protesters, especially the young ones, is heartbreaking. As a mother in the fight, I feel it more intensely. The more I see their suffering, the more I want to fight, even at the risk of death. Those who die now are unbreakable.

(Michael Haack was the campaign coordinator for US Campaign for Burma from 2008 to 2010, and has previously conducted research on Myanmar’s history and politics for the McSweeney imprint Voice of Witness and for Yale University MacMillan Center. Nadi Hlaing is a Burmese-American activist based in New York City. Article courtesy: Jacobin.)

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A New Stage in the Fight against the Military Order – the Resistance Calls for Solidarity!

Pierre Rousset

12 March 2021: Six long weeks after the 1 February coup, the vast movement of civil disobedience in Myanmar has won a first significant victory: preventing the junta from claiming to control the country. The army has responded by resorting, in particular, to a policy of multifaceted terror. We have entered a new stage in the confrontation between the military order and the democratic movement. In the face of the violence of the assault, the resistance continues its fight under very difficult circumstances. It must be able to count on international solidarity.

From 1 February, the junta carried out increasingly massive arrests: some 2,000 people were imprisoned (temporarily or permanently). The killings began in mid-February, then became systematic from the end of the month; to date, the online daily Irrawaddy counts more than 60 people killed and the number continues to rise. The spectre of the 1988 massacres and their 3,000 dead haunts the country, although the situation has changed. The country was at the time isolated from the world by the ruling junta, and it took a year for the full extent of the bloodshed to become fully known. We are now informed of the day-to-day situation and the army has not yet succeeded, despite its best efforts, in ensuring effective censorship. A collective of photojournalists, The Myanmar Project, has been set up and many newspapers are still covering the events as I write this article.

Preventing “internal normalization”

The civil disobedience movement has won a first and decisive victory: through its massive size, it prevented the putschists from imposing their fait accompli. No one can be unaware that this is an illegitimate regime; the military have lost the battle for communication. Domestically, they are struggling to normalize the situation. The functioning of the administration is hampered by the civil servants’ strike. The public and private banking system is at a standstill, businesses (including those owned by the military) are paralyzed. Rail transport is severely disrupted, as well as gas production and oil refining according to the CTUM union. Magnates worry about the economic consequences of the coup and quietly support the resistance. Personalities organize fundraisers to help strikers who have lost all income. Some 600 police have defected, some finding refuge in India. A large number of diplomats and embassies have refused to recognise the putschists, which restricted the junta’s international contacts.

In this Buddhist country where the monastic order has 500,000 members divided into 9 sects, the clergy has until now remained on the side-lines, unlike what happened in 2017. Groups of bhikkus (monks) did rally to the demonstrations, waving placards, but this remained anecdotal – they were fewer in number than the pro-army monks who publicly supported the putsch a few days before it happened. The official religious authorities (the Sangha) are not supposed to engage in politics, but this is not observed in practice. Movements with Buddhist reference points cover the entire political spectrum, down to the fascist far right, as was the case with the Organization for the Defence of Race and Nation (Ma Ba Tha) which played a very significant role at the time of the Rohingya genocide in 2014.

The Sangha is usually close to the government, without making its dictatorial character a bone of contention. Since the coup, the military leadership has taken care to court the hierarchy of orders more than ever. There are pro-democracy monks, probably more numerous than they appear today, but they do not identify with the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK, a highly authoritarian figure) with whom they have had a very tense relationship. A monk from Rangoon told Bruno Philip, a journalist at Le Monde: “It is a pity that the highly respected General Aug San Mrs. Suu Kyi’s father, leader of the anti-colonial movement] gave birth to such a woman!”. [1] One of the most influential Buddhist leaders, Sitagu Sayada, who is said to enjoy the high life and is very close to the General-in-Chief, has suffered a flurry of criticism on social media. His sect, the Shwe Kyin, finally called on the military to be more restrained in repression. [2]

The Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) continues to organize day long general strikes and one of its components, the Confederation of Trade Unions, Myanmar (CTUM) has launched an urgent appeal for solidarity with the particular objective of obtaining a “a harsh comprehensive sanction that can finish off the regime and its structure” so as “to rebuild Burma from scratch — without any interference from the military”. [3] The stakes are clear. It is about putting an end once and for all to the military order imposed almost continuously on Burma since 1962. The peoples of the Union of Burma need strong international action to do so.

Isolate, sanction the junta

The junta probably thought that the foreseeable international condemnations of the putsch would not have great consequences. A mistake. The civil disobedience movement has changed the rules of the game. Many established powers cannot simply turn a blind eye or be content with formal protests. Indeed, sanctions have been taken which carry some weight.

“How to break the deadlock?” asks Mediapart journalist Laure Siegel. She responds in a remarkable article calling for “International support, embargo, boycott, internal resistance, cross-border citizen alliances”. A good summary! [4]

The military is seeking to exhaust the civic movement, terrorize the population and divide the opposition. The democratic resistance has a vital need for solidarity, it is a question of survival – but today it is possible to deal the junta some very hard blows if political pressure is maintained, just as it is possible to bring concrete support for popular struggles. The following examples show this.

Myanmar’s representative at the United Nations denounced the coup, which made de facto recognition of the junta more difficult. Embassies are seceding, maintaining their allegiance to the (now underground) government of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The junta has not been recognized by international bodies, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). US President Joe Biden has blocked a $1 billion transfer from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Central Bank of Myanmar. Freezing Burmese assets abroad is therefore possible. It must be generalized and the travel abroad of dignitaries of the putschist regime forbidden!

The European Union is officially suspending aid that could benefit the military. We must move from declarations to actions. A platform has been set up which tracks down Western firms supplying “sensitive” material. The responsibility of foreign companies equipping the junta’s repressive forces is denounced. An Italian firm sells it light weapons (which escape the controls of the heavy weaponry trade, but which are suitable for repression). [5] Swedish companies offer smartphones while US enterprises sell hacking software. Israel sends surveillance drones or drones capable of dumping tear gas on the population. In terms of investment and trade, the integration of the Burmese economy is above all regional: Singapore, China, Thailand, India… countries not very inclined to interfere in the “internal affairs” of their neighbour. However, some foreign firms have stopped dealing with the junta. This is the case, for example, with Kirin, the Japanese brewing giant, ending a six-year joint venture with an army holding company. The Australian company Woodside has decided to cease its activities in the oil and gas fields, which were worth 920 million euros per year. [6]

The call for an international boycott of “khaki economy” products is being organized, again through Internet platforms. The Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) has appealed to garment brands to protect their strikers from retaliatory measures by employers or the military for their participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement – “refusing to do so will equate with being silent against the crimes of the Myanmar military junta”. LaborNotes provides a list of brands using Burmese production. [7]

Among the multinationals on which maximum pressure must be exerted are obviously, in the oil sector, Chevron (United States) and Total (France) who paid nearly 230 million euros in 2019 in taxes and shares to the Burmese government. Today Total is accountable to the people of Burma. “Doctor Sasa”, a figure in the NLD, said in an interview with Le Monde: “I beg President Emmanuel Macron to grant us his help, including, in the future, military support for our future federal army. I also ask the company Total, present in Burma, to cease collaborating economically with the regime”. [8]

The resistance is reorganizing itself to face up to the qualitative leap in repression. It is testing unarmed self-defence measures in neighbourhoods and villages to stop military movement. Known activists are going into hiding. Contacts are being strengthened with Burmese emigration and solidarity movements in neighbouring countries (mainly Thailand). Millions of kyats (the local currency) have been sent from Thailand, where 70% of Burmese immigrant workers are located. There is a strong sense of proximity between activists on both sides of the border, where youth have led the regional Milk Tea Alliance against authoritarianism. In Burma, the Civil Disobedience Movement constitutes the first framework for cooperation between, in particular, Generation Z (young people in education), the CTUM trade union federation which called on 8 February for a general strike, and local popular committees. For its part, the National League for Democracy has reconstituted a government that is demanding to be recognized by the UN. Finally, a “General Strike Committee of Nationalities”, representing more than 24 groups, was founded on 11 February. Half of the ethnic armed organizations threatened the junta with retaliation in the event of an army or police attack on CDM protesters in their territory, without however supporting Suu Kyi and the NLD. Karen State in particular, in the east of the country, is committed to protecting and supporting any member of the armed forces who sides with the CDM.

On the side of the regime, no defection has been reported from the army, unlike the police. It forms a very homogeneous body where the families of soldiers live in a closed circuit. It constitutes a power that parallels the civil administration from top to bottom and at each level uses its capacity to influence society. Controlling two large conglomerates as well as the traffic in precious stones or wood, the “khaki economy” is a clientele capitalism, able to co-opt even figures from the Bamar opposition (the majority ethnic group living in the delta of the Irrawaddy). A trial of strength is underway to rally the representatives of ethnic minorities. The military have the means to implement a universal “divide and rule” policy.

Military camps are being set up in schools (to monitor Gen Z), universities and hospitals (whose staff have been at the forefront of the resistance and treating the wounded). More than 20,000 common law detainees have been released to make room for political prisoners and wreak havoc on the demonstrators. Obsessive surveillance is exercised on the population. The military boasts of being able to kill and pillage as they wish. The junta could even organize a famine to blame the resistance. By combining terror, corruption and impoverishment of a population already hard hit by Covid, they hope to exhaust it.

The democratic revolution in Myanmar knows that it is engaged in a struggle which can last a long time. It faces a formidable enemy that should not be underestimated. It offers a great lesson in courage and commitment. It is not alone. The democratic demand has taken on a deep resonance at a time when the authoritarianism of regimes is increasing from Asia to Europe, to the Americas … causing in turn civic uprisings capable of achieving significant victories. Myanmar, with its diverse populations, has become one of the new “warm fronts” in a universal struggle.

Footnotes

[1] Bruno Philip, Le Monde, 24 February 2021.

[2] The Irrawaddy, 5 March 2021.

[3] Labor Notes, 5 March 2021, “Burmese Union Federations Call for International Support Against Coup”.

[4] Mediapart, 7 March 2021, “Birmanie: comment sortir de l’impasse”, available on ESSF.

[5] Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, The Irrawaddy, 9 March 2021, “Immediate halt in all arms transfers: ! Italian Ammunition Used in Myanmar Police Assault on Ambulance Raises Questions”.

[6] Laure Siegel, Mediapart, 7 March 2021, op. cit.

[7] Labor Notes, 5 March 2021, “Burmese Union Federations Call for International Support Against Coup”.

[8] Interview with Bruno Philip, Le Monde, 9 March 2021.

(Pierre Rousset is a French left activist.)