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Myanmar Workers and Unions on the Front Lines in Fight Against Coup

Kevin Lin

February 26, 2021: On February 1, the Myanmar military staged a coup and seized power from the elected civilian government under the pretext of alleged election fraud. The coup leaders detained top government leaders and activists, shut off the internet, and suspended flights. This marks a dark and uncertain turn in the country’s decade-long, fraught experiment with partial democratization.

The coup threatens to reverse gains in Myanmar in democratic rights. A strong labor movement has been building for a decade through militant struggle by factory workers, preparing them for a strong showing in the current uprising. Building on the growing walkouts by public and private sector workers over the last three weeks, the general strikes since February 22 are now offering the best hope to resist the coup and to build a stronger labor movement beyond.

Workers revolt

Soon after the coup was declared, a massive, civil disobedience movement emerged, with workers and trade unions front and center. In one of the earliest mobilizations, medical workers from over 110 hospitals and health departments in 50 townships across Myanmar were among the first who rose up and went on strike, two days after the coup. In one government hospital , 38 out of 40 doctors and 50 out of 70 nurses struck.

“There is no way we can work under a dictatorship,” said Dr. Kyaw Zin, a surgeon who led one of the first strikes. “I am pretty sure we can bring down the regime. We will never go back to work until [Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader] steps down. He has no right to tell us to come to work, because no one recognizes him as the leader.”

The trade union federations were quick to mobilize. The Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM), the largest trade union federation in Myanmar, called for the first general strike on February 8. Despite threats of arrest and growing repressive tactics from the government, workers in a wide range of sectors, including garbage collectors, firefighters, electricity workers, private bank employees, and garment workers initiated waves of strikes, and many joined street demonstrations.

Teachers were quick to join the movement with their students. Seven teachers’ unions, including the 100,000-strong Myanmar Teachers’ Federation that covers primary and higher education and monastery schools, announced work stoppages.

Journalists, too, have been walking off of the job. In response to the coup and threats to media freedom, members of the Myanmar Press Council and more than a dozen journalists at The Myanmar Times have resigned.

Importantly, employees from municipal governments and the ministries of Commerce, Electricity and Energy, Transport and Communications, and Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation have joined the strike actions, leaving many departments deserted in the past week. The labor actions hit particularly hard in the transportation sector. According to an official from the Myanmar Railways (MR), 99 percent of railway employees are on strike, leading to a shutdown of train services.

Striking workers managed to shut down the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, Myanmar National Airlines, mines, construction sites, garment factories, and schools, creating economic costs for the military rulers. The workers were joined by consumers boycotting the military’s extensive business interests in food and beverage products, cigarettes, the entertainment industry, internet service providers, banks, financial enterprises, hospitals, oil companies, and wholesale markets and retail businesses.

The military has responded with repression. Workers and students have been arrested for participating in the peaceful protests, and the military has started to use deadly force, already killing three.

Garment workers paved the way

Myanmar workers’ militancy has been building over several years. As the country opened itself up for foreign direct investment nearly a decade ago, the government agreed to major labor law reforms, legalizing trade unions and codifying labor rights in the 2011 Labor Organization Law. It also incorporated labor dispute resolution mechanisms in its 2012 Labour Disputes Settlement Law.

However, Myanmar labor activists have argued that the laws seek to channel workers into legal avenues that are far less powerful than their militant, mass actions to demand real improvements to harsh working conditions and the low minimum wage, which currently stands at 4,800 kyats (U.S.$3.26 per day).

A wave of militant strikes swept the garment sector in 2019 to demand higher wages and safer working conditions. The $6 billion industry, which employs 700,000 mostly female workers, supplies global brands such as H&M, Zara, C&A, among others. It accounted for 30 percent of Myanmar’s exports that year—up from 7 percent in 2011, when the country’s democratic reforms began.

“When one strike happens, other workers see that the strike works,” said Daw Moe Sandar Myint, a leader of the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar and herself a former garment worker, describing the strike wave in the garment sector. “They come to know the taste of the strike, and it is a good taste. The strike also gives them the union.”

But the onset of Covid was a setback for militant union struggles, interrupting the strike wave and the growing unionization in the sector. Employers took advantage of the business disruptions wrought by the pandemic to bust unions by laying off their members.

Factory workers’ demands for a minimum wage increase and safer conditions were also ignored, and they suffered wage cuts or delayed wage payment. Many fought back despite the more difficult organizing conditions; workers at multiple factories went on strike early in the pandemic to receive their unpaid salaries and compensation for their dismissal.

For example, in March 2020, the Myan Mode garment factory permanently fired all 520 union members and withheld their wages, citing Covid, while keeping its 700 non-union workers. The union organized protests and was able to secure withheld wages for the dismissed workers.

Despite the setbacks during the pandemic, when the Myanmar military moved to undermine democracy, many garment workers felt they had had enough and were ready for a fight. “Workers were already angry, they were already activated”, said Daw Moe Sandar Myint, who has been on the frontlines of the movement against the coup. “A familiar feeling of suffering had returned and they could not stay silent.” This anger pushed her and many others to lead factory workers into the movement.

Garment workers were among the first to call for street protests and mobilize in the street despite the coup leaders’ stern warning. This helped boost the confidence of the civil disobedience movement. As Andrew Tillett-Saks, a labor organizer based in Myanmar, emphasizes, “The sight of industrial workers, largely young, women garment workers, seems to have deeply inspired the general public, broken down some of the fear, and catalyzed the massive protests and general strike we are seeing now.”

“Workers and unions are the main force of the movement in Yangon [the country’s largest city],” labor and human rights activist Thet Swe Win agreed. “Because there are many thousands of workers from the factories, their gatherings in the street are going to get a lot of attention from the people.

“They are taking a lot of risks to take this kind of action,” she said. “Many of the labor leaders have been fired before. They have been oppressed by the government and factory owners. They are very vulnerable but they are very dedicated.”

For her role in mobilizing and leading garment workers in the civil disobedience movement, Daw Moe Sandar Myint’s home was raided on February 6. She was able to avoid arrest, and miraculously continues to lead protests by day. But by night, she has to hide from the authorities looking for her.

The organized participation of workers and their unions in both the public and private sectors is one of the most crucial factors pushing the civil disobedience movement forward and determining the future of Myanmar.

Tillett-Saks pointed out that the civil disobedience movement has been led primarily by government employees and garment workers in the private sector. He believes that they are the last line of defense against the military dictatorship. The more recent general strikes since February 22 have seen participation from workers across a greater spectrum of Myanmar society. The challenge remains to further expand worker militancy and increase strike actions among more private sector and non-unionized workers.

Why international solidarity matters

In the face of increasing repression by the military—including the issuance of arrest warrants for eight CTUM leaders earlier this week—international pressure is more urgent than ever to protect the democratic rights of workers and their unions.

“International support means a lot to us,” said Thet Swe Win. “It helps us feel we are not alone, and to know there are people out there supporting our freedom and liberty.”

Labor and human rights groups have organized protests outside of Myanmar embassies and issued solidarity statements condemning the coup in Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia, and the Philippines, among other places.

It is not difficult to understand why the movement has found resonance and sparked such an outpouring of support in the region. Protesters in other countries express solidarity given the common challenge of undemocratic rule and ongoing repression against unionists and civil society groups. Places like Hong Kong and Thailand have recently seen their own mass democratic protest movements.

Kamz Deligente at the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights in the Philippines, which has been campaigning against violent attacks on unionists in the country, said: “The Filipino people can also identify with the struggle of Myanmar, as our current government, specifically the Executive branch, is dominated by retired military men and is running the country under a de facto martial law. This greatly contributed to the intensified attacks against activists and critics of Duterte and his administration.”

Migrant workers

Many countries in the region are also connected through migrant workers from Myanmar who work in factories, construction, fishing, and other sectors. In Thailand, a few dozen of the estimated three to four million migrant workers from Myanmar protested in front of the Myanmar embassy in the days immediately after the coup. In Japan, hundreds of Myanmar workers also held a protest outside of the United Nations office.

In Taiwan, around 400 Myanmar immigrants rallied to condemn the military coup in New Taipei City, where many of them live. Lennon Ying-Dah Wong of Serve the People Association, which works with immigrant workers, warned, “A dictatorship ruled by the notorious junta might embrace a migrant-export policy to squeeze fees and remittances from its citizens who are forced to go abroad to work, but also totally neglect their rights. If this happens, it will endanger the rights and welfare of not only Burmese migrant workers, but all migrant workers and Taiwanese workers as well.”

Pressure the Brands

The Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar, the country’s largest garment worker union, has called on global unions to pressure brands doing business in Myanmar to condemn the coup and cut ties to businesses that benefit the military’s interests. It has also called for workers to be protected from dismissal for protesting.

Ten international unions representing 200 million workers have called on unions globally to ramp up pressure on governments and corporations to target the commercial interests of the Myanmar military.

For unions and rank-and-file workers in the U.S. and elsewhere, building concrete solidarity with Myanmar workers means actively responding to such calls by issuing statements to condemn the coup, pressuring companies that do business in Myanmar to do the same, and calling for employers to sever any ties in their supply chains with the business interests of the military.

Workers in Myanmar have demonstrated that direct actions are powerful and they work. Whether by organizing and engaging in militant strikes in their workplace, or by walking off their jobs and joining street demonstrations, they are fighting to defend their democratic rights and win a better life for workers in the country and around the world. They need—and deserve—our support.

Update: Late Friday evening, February 26 (local time), the Myanmar military declared most of the country’s labor organizations illegal on public television, with the threat of arrests if their activities continue, adding to the urgency of international solidarity activities.

(Kevin Lin writes about labor movements in Asia, and is a senior advisor at Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum. Article courtesy: Labor Notes, a US based media and organising project.)

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In Myanmar, Workers Are On the Front Lines of the Fight Against the Military Coup

Courtesy: Left Voice

[For over two weeks, the working class, along with other popular sectors in Myanmar, have been organizing militant protests against the military coup that ousted the elected government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Here, we present an interview with Stephen Campbell, who is an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. For the past 10 years, he’s been doing ethnographic research on working conditions and labor struggles among Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand and in Myanmar. His current research focuses on labor conditions and workers’ struggles at an industrial zone on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital.]

Left Voice: In recent days we have seen images of numerous columns of workers on the streets defying the military coup. It could be seen as a “surprise,” but in recent years the Myanmarese working class conducted several strikes and struggles for their rights, against bosses’ harassment, for wages. What can you tell us about this process of worker strikes and struggles?

Stephen Campbell: Actually, workers in Myanmar, especially garment factory workers, who are mostly young women in their late teens and early 20s, have been organizing continually over the past decade, and even before that. This dedicated organizing work has produced a strong network among industrial workers throughout the various industrial zones around Yangon.

Although there have been certain prominent moments of strike waves over the past decade, factory strikes in the industrial zones around Yangon have been recurring events. However, not all strikes are covered by the media. In fact, because of how often factory employers have violated labor law and paid below the minimum wage, strikes have in many cases been necessary for workers to obtain just the bare legal minimum in wages and working conditions. As a result, many workers have gained extensive experience in workplace organizing and in strikes. And out of these struggles, they have become quite militant and very capable at taking collective action.

Since these industrial zones are around Yangon, it is relatively easy for these workers to get downtown. Since the coup, garment factory workers have made clear in their protest chants and in interviews that they expect military rule to entail a restriction of their legal rights and a contraction of the space for worker organizing. If that happens, it will have a detrimental impact on their already-precarious livelihoods. In other words, workers’ collective involvement in the anti-coup protests and in the civil disobedience campaign is very much grounded in their immediate material concerns. So, for this reason, and given how organized and militant these workers already were, it is not a surprise that they have taken such a leading role in the anti-coup protests and in the civil disobedience campaign.

LV: Why do you think the working class is at the forefront of the struggle against the coup?

SC: As I mentioned, many factory workers employed in the industrial zones around Yangon were already very organized, but they were also in a very precarious situation. Conditions have been even worse since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which employers have used as a pretext to fire unionized workers, and police have sided with employers to break up strikes and arrest worker organizers. And with the coup, there has been clear recognition among workers that military rule will entail a contraction of the space for organizing, which would give employers even more power to suppress wages and violate labor laws.

One of the most prominent worker organizers in the anti-coup protests, Moe Sandar Myint, recently stated in an interview, “Workers are ready for this fight. We know that the situation will only deteriorate under military dictatorship, so we will fight as one, united, until the end.” So, for many workers, this struggle is not simply about Aung San Suu Kyi and [her party] the National League for Democracy (NLD). It is a struggle grounded in their immediate material concerns, and in many ways it points beyond a simple return of the NLD to government, since the situation for workers under the NLD was also very precarious and very restrictive.

LV: Myanmar is one of the fastest-growing countries in the region. Many multinational enterprises invested in the country. What were the consequences of these economic transformations on the social structure of Myanmar? How did this “new” working class emerge? And what are the living and working conditions of the working class in Myanmar?

SC: Before 2011, many Western apparel brands were unwilling to source their supplies from Myanmar because of the stigma associated with the very illiberal labor practices under military rule. But after the elections in 2010 and a shift to quasi-civilian rule at the start of 2011, the dominant narrative has been that the country is undergoing a “transition” to liberal democracy. And with the introduction of new labor laws in 2011 and 2012, Western apparel brands were no longer stigmatized for sourcing from Myanmar. Plus, Myanmar has one of the lowest wage rates in Asia.

At the same time, under the so-called political transition and during the preceding years of military rule, large numbers of rural dwellers have been pushed out of rural areas. This has been due to increased debt and loss of agricultural land, which in many cases was simply taken by military officials or their business cronies. And in 2008, there was a major cyclone in the delta.

All this led to a large migration of rural residents to the industrial zones around Yangon. Since real estate speculation and large-scale urban migration drove up the cost of housing, many of these new urban residents moved into informal squatter settlements. At present, there are hundreds of thousands of people living in squatter settlements on the outskirts of Yangon. In some cases, former rural dwellers migrated to Thailand or other countries in the region in search of employment.

As this was happening, especially over the past decade, foreign development agencies and consultants in Myanmar have argued that this movement from rural to urban areas is the best thing to happen because urban waged employment is ostensibly more “productive” than agricultural livelihoods. The effect, however, has been a growing population of migrants to the city who are in a very precarious situation with no effective social safety net. Many factories, especially those producing for the domestic market, do not pay the minimum wages. And even garment factories producing for exports often violate labor protection laws.

LV: The garment industry is one of the most important economic sectors for Myanmarese exports. Many struggles took place in the garment industry where 90 percent of workers are women. What is the role of women in striking and organizing the working class in the country?

SC: Garment, textile, footwear, and accessory factories producing for export, which are located in the various industrial zones around Yangon, employed about 1 million people (at least before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic) and restrict hiring almost exclusively to young women in their late teens to early 20s. Even women in their mid-20s can find it difficult to get employment in these factories. One consequence of this arrangement is that these women are often the only person in their household with relatively stable waged employment. So their families often depend, at least in part, on these women’s wages.

It is often said, in Myanmar and other countries with large garment sectors, that such factories prefer to hire young women because they are perceived as less likely to organize, strike, or otherwise cause problems for the employer. This is, however, evidently not the case. In fact, since many of these young women are supporting their families, they have added motivation to organize collectively to obtain higher wages. Under these conditions, there have been many impressive women organizers who have developed their organizing skills, leadership, and confidence through direct participation in workplace organizing.

LV: For a long time under the military regime, it was impossible for workers to organize legally. But since 2011 workers took advantage of the regime’s opening to create new trade unions, confederations, and so on. And sometimes, the strikes and claims of the workers are very “radical.” For instance, during the Covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis, they fought to preserve jobs and to protect union representatives who were fired, and they refused to accept severance payments. How can you explain this confidence? Are there are political or ideological currents, or historical political movements, that are influencing the working movement today? If so, which ones?

SC: Although it wasn’t legally possible for workers to establish trade unions under military rule, there were many cases of informal worker organizing — at least, that is what older workers who were employed before 2010 have told me. In 2011 and 2012, the new quasi-civilian government introduced new labor laws that allowed workers to form legal trade unions and bargain collectively. Since then, however, most workplaces have remained in violation of various laws and have often paid workers below the legal minimum wage. At the same time, many workers have found government industrial relations officials to be biased toward employers or outright corrupt. And police have often sided with employers to break up strikes and arrest strike leaders.

Consequently, many workers have seen clearly that they cannot depend on existing labor law and government institutions to address their immediate livelihood concerns. So, when organizers in a workplace start reaching out to their fellow workers, many people have been eager to take part in collective action.

At same time there is also a rich tradition of opposition in Myanmar. Even before the return to quasi-civilian rule in 2011, many workers pursued informal collective struggles in their workplace. It is also relevant to point out that Myanmar has a rich leftist tradition. Although the Communist Party of Burma effectively collapsed over three decades ago (at the same time that the so-called socialist period ended), many labor activists are well versed in leftist thought and in their country’s leftist history. And some younger radical students have over the past decade reached out to factory workers and supported libraries for workers with leftist literature, or have started journals for factory workers with leftist themes.

So, explicitly leftist currents are present among factory workers. Nevertheless, for most workers their “radical” politics — such as their militant willingness to strike or to confront the police — has emerged out of their own struggles over the past decade.

LV: It seems that bosses, the state, governments (assisted by international organizations like ILO) try to impose laws that limit the strikes, but also they use police and judiciary repression against striking workers. What can you tell us about the responses of state and bosses to workers activism?

SC: Well, I have said that even under military rule, before the introduction of new labor laws in 2011 and 2012, there had been workplace organizing and strikes by workers. Then, with the shift to quasi-civilian rule after the 2010 elections, the ILO helped the new government draft these news labor laws. At the time, an ILO adviser explained that the new laws aimed to “ward off strikes” by channeling workers’ grievances into institutional mechanisms. But as many workers found out, the new mechanisms were often biased toward employers, or officials were simply corrupt.

As a result, many workers have chosen to strike rather than, or before, filing complaints about labor law violations with government mediators. And since police also commonly side with employers, workers who have gone on strike have faced arrest and police violence. And this was this situation under the “liberal” NLD government. So, with the military coup, many workers have expressed concerns that space for organizing will contract even further.

LV: For now, it seems that Myanmar’s workers are struggling against the coup, and Suu Kyi seems very popular among Myanmarese people. But under NLD governments the exploitation and repression against the working class was very harsh. From a working-class point of view, it seems that the “democratic liberal” project is not really an alternative that can improve living and working conditions of workers, nor guarantee them political, national (ethnic minorities), and economic and trade union rights. It means that workers must go beyond the political goals of Suu Kyi and her party. What can you say about political class independence for workers in Myanmar in this moment of struggle against the military coup?

SC: Yes, on the one hand, over the past decade under quasi-civilian rule, there has been relatively more space for workers to organize. They have been able to form legal unions and many strikes have been successful. At the same time, as I have mentioned, workers continued to confront barriers to achieving even the bare legal minimum in wages and working conditions. Now, as we can see in the protests, images of Aung San Suu Kyi and calls for her release have been very prominent. But people have more broadly voiced a rejection of military rule. And many protesters are calling for the abolition of the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which enshrined the military’s role in government, as well as for a truly federal democratic arrangement, which would go some way toward addressing the long-standing grievances of ethnic minorities against the central government’s domination.

So, in a way, the scale and momentum of the protests and of the civil disobedience campaign, which is basically a general strike, have opened space to think about more far-reaching political goals. And to the extent that this movement is successful, much credit is due to workers who were at the forefront at the start of protests shortly after the coup. And whatever happens from this point forward, these workers have shown that they are an important political force in themselves and not simply a vote-bank for the NLD.

LV: Do you think the situation in Myanmar can influence the workers movement in the other countries of Southeast Asia?

SC: Already, the civil disobedience campaign in Myanmar has motivated a resurgence in the pro-democracy protest movement in neighboring Thailand. And Myanmar has been asked to join the Milk Tea Alliance, which is a loose online coalition of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Myanmar. Of course, the people involved in these movements are often workers in one way or another. But it is not yet clear to me whether the actions of workers in Myanmar will motivate people in other regional countries to voice an explicitly working-class politics or to adopt the general strike as a tactic of struggle toward a democratic pro-worker political arrangement.

(Courtesy: Left Voice, a US socialist news site and magazine.)