"TRADE UNIONS AND THE COMPREHENSIVE SANCTIONS DILEMMA", 6 November 2021

In Hlaing Thar Yar, Yangon, nearly 350 workers started striking and protesting over pay cuts below the minimum wage, and the cut of other benefits at the Gasan Apparel factory. The management, which has strong ties with the military, asked for the intervention of regime soldiers, who arrived with a truck. Fortunately no worker was arrested, but soldiers took pictures of them, and there is now an obvious fear of repercussions.

Few days earlier, Ko Thwin Aung, the president of the Gasan Apparel Garment Workers Committee, was sentenced to 3-year of imprisonment apparently under section 505(a) of the penal code, that punishes whoever “publishes or circulates any statement, rumor…” “with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, any officer, soldier…to mutiny or otherwise disregard or fail in his duty as such”.

Trade Unions were legalized in Myanmar only in 2011, with the Labour Organisation Law, but since then union workers have constantly faced discrimination, if not worse....during the Coronavirus pandemic, garment factories weaponized Covid to fire thousands of unionized garment workers. Trade Union leaders faced imprisonment for leading strikes during the pandemic.

In March 2021, a few weeks after the coup, 6 workers were killed by regime soldiers in a shoe factory in Hlaing Thar Yar. The owner of the factory called the workers to collect their wages, but a dispute erupted when workers found out they were not given the full salary. That is when the owner called regime armed soldiers, who shot and killed the leader of the workers. Few minutes later, 5 more people were killed when soldiers opened fire into a crowd that was protesting over the arrest of 70 workers.

Since February 1st, dozens of union leaders have been arrested, including Daw Myo Aye of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM), who was abducted in April and charged under section 505A, a new provision introduced after the coup, that punishes comments that cause “fear” or spread “fake news that incite violence against government employees”. She is currently detained in Insein prison in solitary confinement.

The Junta is clearly targeting Trade Unions, but why are they considered to be such a threat to the regime?

Unions have the ability to organize and mobilize thousands of people. It’s not a coincidence that workers were among the firsts to take it to the streets following Min Aung Hlaing’s coup. And they have the ability to hit the regime where it hurts the most: its pockets.

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