1/23/2024 0 Comments Myanmar general strike![]() Following the mass killings of protesters at Hlaing Tharyar on March 14 and the subsequent imposition of martial law, many workers fled the industrial zones for their hometowns in rural Myanmar. In the weeks after the coup, workers’ strikes, supply chain disruptions and a climate of insecurity compelled factories in Yangon’s industrial zones to suspend operations. Other union leaders and labour activists have since gone underground or fled abroad. On April 15, about 40 soldiers raided the Shwepyithar office of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar and arrested its director, Daw Myo Myo Aye, for organising anti-coup activities. On March 15, martial law was also declared in the Yangon townships of North Dagon, South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa, all of which suggests the junta was targeting working class neighbourhoods. Later that day, martial law was declared in Hlaing Tharyar and nearby Shwepyithar Township. On March 14, soldiers and police killed at least 65 protesters in Yangon’s heavily industrialised Hlaing Tharyar Township, where tens of thousands of factory workers live. On February 26, 2021, the junta declared 16 of the country’s most prominent trade unions and labour organisations illegal and threatened to arrest labour activists who continued to organise anti-coup activities, signalling an acute awareness of the power of labour organising. The junta’s response to defiant factory workers has been brutal. (Frontier) Repressing workers, enabling exploitation Protesters with makeshift shields face off against security forces in Hlaing Tharyar on March 14, a day that saw at least 65 killed. ![]() What is apparent in these workplace movements is a process of democratisation from below, as workers endeavour to assert collective power in their workplace. The enduring collective struggles of workers in industrial zones around Yangon – and those of ordinary people throughout the country – reflect the need for something beyond mere restoration of the pre-coup political arrangement. The experiences of workers in industrial zones around Yangon since the coup make clear the causal link between military rule and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Myanmar and show how the collective struggles of workers to improve their livelihoods is a critical element of the broader popular uprising.Īt the same time, the employment-related demands made by workers in industrial zones around Yangon since February 1 last year – for better wages and working conditions and increased opportunities to organise – reveal a continuity between working-class struggles since the coup and those during the so-called democratic transition. As a student activist involved in the protests acknowledged in June 2021, “Working-class people have been crucial to our movement.” Workers making military equipment at Ministry of Defence factories and miners employed at Chinese-run copper mines with revenue-sharing agreements with the military also joined the general strike.īy organising themselves and taking direct action, workers throughout Myanmar made history in the weeks and months after the coup. ![]() “Employers will oppress workers and reduce their wages,” she said.Ĭoncern about the possibility of deteriorating working conditions and restrictions on employees organising at their workplaces were major reasons why thousands of mostly young, mostly female factory workers protested against the coup in downtown Yangon on February 6, catalysing a series of general strikes that have taken place since the coup.Īlongside the protests, civil servants, led by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, had launched a Civil Disobedience Movement that would subsequently attract hundreds of thousands of other public and private sector workers.Īt Yangon’s ports, striking truck drivers brought international trade to a standstill and the banking system was paralysed by walk-outs. “It’ll be like it was before,” said Ma Phyu*, a worker interviewed by the authors two days after the coup, referring to the decades under military rule before 2011 when labour unions were de facto illegal. When the Myanmar military seized power on February 1, 2021, factory workers in the industrial zones around Yangon were immediately apprehensive. ![]() Unscrupulous factory owners have used the coup to cut wages and harass workplace unions, but successful strikes at two plants late last year have highlighted the determination of workers to resist exploitation and abuse.īy KO MAUNG and STEPHEN CAMPBELL | FRONTIER ![]()
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