I spent a week with each project and, after meetings and visits with many participating workers, it’s great to be able to assure donors that your contributions are bringing huge benefits to these very vulnerable workers.

In Tamil Nadu the Dalit and tribal workers spoke movingly, and with great pride, about the benefits they have been able to achieve through their union which now has more than 30,000 members, and their gratitude to New Zealand workers for your solidarity.

For these workers and their families, gaining respect as well as monetary gains has been a life-changing experience.

On the Thai-Burma border, in the very difficult conditions for migrant workers in cheap labour sweatshops, the project is bringing knowledge of labour rights and the collective strength to exercise them. Most of these workers are young women and the project is also providing leadership and vocational skills training.

The whole experience made me very proud of what UnionAID has already helped these workers to achieve. And of course our donors should share that pride because we can’t do it without your financial support.

So thanks again for making your commitment. Your money is already making a huge difference to many thousands of some of the most vulnerable workers in the world.

Ross Wilson
Executive Chair
UnionAID

A new Canadian documentary directed by Pierre Mignault and filmed secretly inside Burma showcases the country’s little known networks of resistance movements. It sheds light on the enormous risks taken by ordinary Burmese, and their long struggle to remove the country’s brutal military dictatorship.

Showing in Auckland on Monday 3 May, 8.30pm at Academy Cinema, 44 Lorne St

and in Wellington on Monday 26 April, 8pm at Paramount Cinema, Courtenay Pl.

Tickets are $25. Join us for free drinks at a social hour before the screening

contact unionaid@nzctu.org.nz for tickets.

All proceeds to UnionAID

Breaking the Silence: Burma's Resistance

The training courses included:

• Information about labour laws and culture of Thailand
• Information about Thailand’s new work permit system
• How to prevent human trafficking (with pamphlet produced by the FTUB)
• Information about new Thai Human Trafficking Law (2008)
• Guide to travelling and working in Thailand (with the second edition of the information published by the ILO)
• Occupational Health and Safety (including safe use of pesticides and other chemicals).
• Resources for publicising the ILO’s Asian Decent Work for All Decade campaign.
• Unity and working together for improvements in work conditions.

A workers rights pamphlet was also produced in several languages and work was undertaken to develop a database of information on workers and their factory conditions and risks.

The FTUB has reported:

• 3000 pamphlets were distributed to migrant worker groups at different plantations and the print run has increased because of demand.
• More confidence by workers and knowledge of their rights.
• In Phawphra area there was a reduction in serious crime.  The workers are taking more collective action to protect each other from violence.
• There is a better relationship with Thai Labour Officers.  They helped with a joint training course on Thai labour law and Labour Relations Act.
• There were fewer arrests of migrant workers and increased co-operation between community based organisations and migrant workers.
• Workers are becoming more able to use official channels to seek redress.

The project will provide leadership training, labour rights education and resources to Burmese migrant workers. In particular the women workers will gain the skills and knowledge to enable them to advocate and organise around employment issues and needs, in order to improve living and working conditions for themselves and their families.

The project will also plan and develop an occupational-based training centre for women workers opening in 2010.
Solidarity will report on this project in more detail in future issues.

Min is also the International Human Rights Director of the FTUB and has played a key role in gathering evidence of forced labour in Burma in support of the case to the  International Labour Organisation over many years.

The FTUB work in Mae Sot is a testament to his commitment and organizing skills. This includes our joint project and an FTUB school for children of migrant families.

The  programme is divided between English language tuition and a specially designed course in development studies.

The young leaders will also get first hand experience of life in New Zealand as they are staying with union hosts, and they will be spending time in a variety of Government agencies, NGOs and workplaces.

They are very impressive young people who have already played a key role in community development activities in their own country, and the knowledge and experiences they gain here will help them play an important role in Burma’s future.

Several unions have agreed to host the young leaders to experience union work at a workplace level. They are willing to speak to union groups and at conferences. Arrangements can be made through Eileen Brown at the CTU ph 04 802 3813 or
eileenb@nzctu.org.nz.

The programme will continue in 2010 and 2011.

In September 2007, the Burmese people mobilised their largest social and political uprising since 1988. Thousands of monks and ordinary people marched to protest grinding poverty and the country’s repressive military dictatorship. The resulting crackdown by the regime was news all over the world: it is believed that at least 110 people were killed and thousands were hurt by rubber bullets, tear gas, bamboo clubs and rubber batons.

Read the whole ITUC report on Burma (pdf document on the ITUC website)
]]> http://www.unionaid.org.nz/index.php/2009/06/rich-pickings-how-trade-and-investment-keep-the-burmese-junta-alive-and-kicking/feed/ 0 http://www.unionaid.org.nz/index.php/2009/06/repression-in-burma/ http://www.unionaid.org.nz/index.php/2009/06/repression-in-burma/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:56:34 +0000 admin http://www.unionaid.org.nz/?p=92

In September 2007 thousands of Burmese monks and citizens came out onto the streets to demonstrate against grinding poverty and the military dictatorship.

Burma had not seen a social and political protest on this scale since 1998. But the repressive response of the ruling military junta was as fierce as it was brutal. At least 110 people were killed, thousands more were wounded by bullets or beaten with clubs and truncheons. There were countless arrests.

(Hnin Si, 26 years old, teacher, witness to the violent repression of 26 September 2007)

“They came out of the Eastern Gate and met the military, who stopped the monks. The monks said we just want to go out there for a peaceful protest so please let us go.
“But the army responded with violence. They opened fire, shooting teargas and beating the protestors.
“I wasn’t beaten myself, but my eyes filled with teargas. I saw students and monks being beaten. Some were hit on the head, some on the arm, and some on the back. Many people were killed, injured or arrested”.

Thousands of Burmese have taken refuge just over the border in Thailand in the last few months, fleeing the repression. Here in Mae Sot they have joined the refugees who preceded them, such as this family who fled from forced labour and brutality.

(Maung Win & Naw Ber Byu, a farming family from the Karen state. They fled the forced labour and brutality in Burma in April 2007.)
(male) When I lived in my village, I was a farmer. Because of the military activity in our village, I didn’t have time to work. I was forced to work as a labourer and a porter. There were taxes. We were afraid of the military, so we came here.
(female) the military camps were built near our home. We were forced to work everyday…
(male) Everyday.. and we had to take our rice as well”.
(both) We had to build the fence, the barracks, and dig the trenches, and the bunkers and cut the bamboo”?
(female) “In our village, when the soldiers got drunk, they forced the married women to have sex. They beat. … Rape? For sure, and when the women ran away to another house, they were chased and beaten on the head with rifles”.

Mae Sot on the Thai border is a hub for legal, and illegal, trade with the junta. The people live in poverty, but several big multinationals and some governments, such as China, India and Thailand, continue to fill the regime’s coffers.

(Nilar, 28, ex- tour guide for a small tourism firm in Rangoon)
‘For example, when tourist planes arrive at the airport, only tour companies connected to the junta can enter the terminal to meet tourists. They have much greater advantage.
“Civilian companies like ours are not allowed to enter. So in this way they get the meat and we get the bones”

(Hari, 27, masked for fear of repression against his family)
“They (the junta) are killing people like chickens and birds I would like to request the world to use economic sanctions and every means possible until human rights are restored in Burma”

Taking up the appeal of the independent Federation of Trade Unions – Burma, the ITUC urges companies to stop investing in Burma. The ITUC also calls on the international community to apply stronger and more targeted economic and financial sanctions, particularly on oil and gas, to bring the regime to its knees, in line with the request of the Burmese democracy movement.

(Maung Maung, General Secretary of FTUB)
“This is what we’ve always told the international community; especially the apologists for the regime, when they are saying that sanctions hurt the people.
That is why we’ve been saying that we have been asked… it’s not our decision. We have been asked by the people in the country to have sanctions on the regime, especially on the industries, the ventures, that create money directly for the regime and its cronies”

(Hari, 27, masked for fear of repression against his family)
“I’m ready to join the struggle for Burmese freedom and to fight for food, clothing and shelter for the people. and fight for the basic rights of the people by every possible means”

(Maung Maung, General Secretary of FTUB)
“What we have been told by people from the very ground level, the factory workers, the people on the work floor, that have said: “look, just shut it down. May be we’ll all go hungry for a month. But it’s better to change the system now than go suffering for ever like this”.

Video and transcript gratefully taken from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) website

Produced by Parachute Pictures (David Browne, Niranjan Racha, Kittichai Sae-ngow, Kim Goii)

“We have offshore oil and gas. We sell it to Thailand and we are supposed to sell it to China and India, but where is the electricity for the population? In Rangoon, at night, they have to alternate the electricity supply between neighbourhoods. Children still have to study by candlelight! We also export the best wood in the world, especially to Europe, but the victims of Cyclone Nargis still don’t have a home because they do not have the money to buy the timber.”

“Sanctions on insurance and financial services are a means of hitting the junta without penalising the poor”

Brussels, 5 June 2009 (ITUC OnLine): The FTUB (Federation of Trade Unions of Burma) held its first ever Congress in March 2009. Its general secretary, Maung Maung, talks about the Burmese trade union movement and the current state of affairs in Burma: international sanctions, the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 2010 elections, the economic collapse, etc.

The first congress of the FTUB, held in Mae Sot (Thailand) in March 2009, was considered to be a great success. What has it done for your organisation?

After 20 years of fighting for a democratic Burma and for workers’ rights in the country, this first congress was indeed a success. First of all, we adopted a constitution based on international standards. Then, we were able to secure the participation of workers from inside Burma and workers’ rights were widely discussed during the congress. Over the years, the FTUB has built up a trade union network inside Burma. That’s how we managed to secure the participation of representatives from a range of sectors such as textiles, clothing, health, education, agriculture, forestry and public services.

The FTUB continues to be illegal in Burma. How are these trade unionists able to represent workers when trade union activities are prohibited?

We are not officially in a position to bargain collectively, but workers can get together and ask their employer to respect their rights, if overtime is not paid, for example. We are happy to be able to operate in this way, at least, even though the junta refuses to officially register our organisation. It is an underground movement that is reaching cruising speed.

Do workers’ representatives not face reprisals?

Twenty-eight FTUB members are currently serving long prison sentences because of their trade union activities. So there are risks, but at the moment, when representatives speak, all the other workers sit behind them. It provides the representatives with a physical presence, a source of support. We have seen cases where a representative has been fired on one pretext or another, for having arrived late, for example, but the workers protest, saying that if he is late, they are all late. Collective movements are therefore taking shape in workplaces.

What activities does the FTUB conduct outside of Burma?

Our main task is to raise awareness about the rights of workers living in Burma, through media interviews, for example. We are working with the international trade union movement, the ITUC in particular, but also with a number of global union federations. The SUB (Seafarers Union of Burma), for example, is now affiliated to the ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation). The ITF has often worked with Thai trade unionists on the issue of the ships that come to the port of Bangkok using flags of convenience. The ITF Asia-Pacific regional secretary, Shigi Wada, went to Burma to try to convince the military junta to recognise the SUB, but to no avail thus far.

You also carry out a lot of solidarity action for Burmese migrants…

The FTUB has a migrant labour secretariat. There are almost 2 million Burmese migrants in Thailand; about 500,000 of these are registered. We are trying to raise their awareness about human trafficking. We tell them that when they are in a country where they have the chance to register, they should do so, as it means that they can then use the host country’s legal and justice system. The FTUB also tries to provide migrants with legal representation. In Thailand, we are working with NGOs and the Law Society of Thailand to offer them this legal representation. We have won over ten cases that have concluded with the migrants being paid compensation, whether they are registered or not. There have been cases regarding unpaid wages, accidents at work, etc. We dealt with the case of a young woman, Masuu, burnt to death by her employer who was accusing her of theft. Her murderer, a Thai military officer, was sent to prison. The Thai justice system allows migrants to defend their rights. We also have our own school for migrants’ children in Mae Sot, with over 240 pupils. It receives support from the union of the Japanese communications company NTT.

The FTUB also tries to organise Burmese migrants and have them join host country unions, because everyone benefits from unity between migrant workers and those of the host community. That’s what we are doing in Thailand and in Malaysia, where we have 50,000 migrants, and we have also managed to form two Burmese migrants’ union in Japan, which are registered with the authorities in compliance with Japanese legislation.

The FTUB and the ITUC are calling for heavier international economic sanctions against the military junta. What would you say to those who argue that sanctions do more harm to the poor people of Burma?

There will always be people who are against sanctions, especially in business circles. Having said that, the European Union’s sanctions are having no impact, neither on the regime nor the people, because they only exist on paper. There is no mechanism for applying them within the 27 member states of the European Union. We have a database, for example, of all the products exported to EU countries which shows that the sanctions linked to the GSP (generalised system of preferences) are not applied. The ban on European visas for the leaders of the regime is a positive and encouraging sign in terms of morale, as it shows the regime that it is isolated from the international community, but it has no major impact in practical terms. It is very different in the United States, where all the customs and immigration systems are under the control of a single government. U.S. sanctions work, and the regime is worried about them, unlike the European sanctions.

We would like to see sanctions that have a direct impact on the regime, such as in the area of financial services. The European Union could ban the Burmese junta’s use of the euro in financial services, as the United States have done with the dollar. The insurance and reinsurance sector has nothing to do with the rice paddy or factory workers, etc. It does, however, affect the planes and ships in the hands of the regime’s cronies, whose activities would be blocked if there was no insurance: their timber, their companies’ products could no longer be exported if their ships were no longer insured. Insurance is only a small sector, but it has an impact on all the rest. We are therefore calling for sanctions targeting insurance and financial transactions.

According to some opponents of sanctions, they will have no impact whilst China continues to be an ally of the junta, because the generals will continue to trade with China…

That is not entirely accurate. The Chinese are good businessmen; they do not give the generals anything for nothing. On the contrary, everything that is exported to China is done so at very low prices, lower than international prices. Aside from a few traders in Yunnan province, trade with Burma is insignificant for the Chinese economy, which is huge. China wants stability in the region. Yet everyone knows that with such a regime, and with Aung San Suu Kyi in prison, there will never be any stability. China is well aware that Burma must evolve towards stability.

What about the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been accused of letting an American swim to her home despite being under house arrest. This story seems absurd. Could the incident really have taken place the way the regime has presented it?

When Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers asked the police if there were guards at the back of her house, they did not respond. Yet they are supposed to guard all around the house. It’s strange… And then, the ex-wife of this American said that she was very surprised to hear that he had swum so far, given that he suffers from chronic asthma. To swim so far, in the dark, carrying supplies, you would have to be a soldier trained in special operations, which you can see by looking at his photo that this man is clearly not. We do not think he was operating alone. We are not saying he is a spy, but that he was unwittingly part of a scheme. He may claim that he was acting according to his own conscience, but I think that a third party pushed him in this direction in order to keep Aung San Suu Kyi out of public sight, to stop her from taking part in the 2010 elections.

Why is the FTUB calling for a boycott of the 2010 elections?

The main reason is the Constitution adopted following the 2008 referendum, held two weeks after Cyclone Nargis, which led to 100,000 deaths in Burma. Everyone thought that the referendum would be postponed, but the regime went ahead with it. It was neither fair nor free, and even before it was held, the National Convention that drew up the draft Constitution was not representative. Our national leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, should have been one of the figures involved, but she was under house arrest for the entire period during which the draft Constitution was being drawn up, which lasted 10 years! Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won the last elections in 1990. It was there at the beginning of the discussions on the new Constitution, but as soon as it started to ask questions and to ask for amendments, it was denied any participation.

There are other problems linked to this Constitution. The ethnic groups who, like all of us, want a federal system in Burma were not able to discuss it. And then, the military said that they would have 25% of the seats in parliament, without even standing for election. The Constitution also prohibits a whole series of Burmese people from standing for election: those who have lived outside Burma for five years or more, those who are married to foreigners, those who have a child that has been living outside of Burma for five years or more… All of this shows that the regime has introduced clauses into the Constitution that will allow it to ban Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part in the elections. Amendments are needed to allow all these people to be candidates.

Is a bad election not better than no election at all?

The current generals will not give up their control over the country. There is no chance of a lesser evil being elected.

The ILO is implementing a project against forced labour in Burma. Is the FTUB satisfied with this programme?

We would like this project to be extended, with the opening of a second ILO office in the country, so that more people can report cases of forced labour to the ILO. The FTUB is satisfied with the current office: its employees have tried to visit the places where the victims of forced labour come from and there are more people who know that they can interact with the ILO. They are still reticent, but as compared with last year, the number of people filing complaints has substantially increased. It’s a positive thing, because we have to let people know that the ILO is there for them, that they have the right to testify.

In September 2007, the rise in the cost of living sparked demonstrations. What is the economic situation now?

A person holding a management position, who speaks English and has a degree, earns around 150,000 kyat a month (150 dollars on the black market). A factory worker earns around 30 dollars a month, but if you look at the wage slip, you will see that the basic is only around 3,500 kyat (3.50 dollars) a month, and then there’s the overtime (around 5,000 kyat), the wages for Saturdays and Sundays, … If you only work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you only earn 3.50 dollars a month! Yet rice, the staple food in Burma, costs about a dollar a day for a family of three. So unless both parents work, there is no way of having something to eat every day.

Many people are without fixed employment. On the outskirts of Rangoon, a family gets up early, prepares food for breakfast and lunch, then they clean the plates and take them, along with covers, clothes and a mosquito net, to someone who gives them money in exchange. The father then goes to Rangoon with this money to look for work. The mother and child wait for him to come back. When he comes home, if he has enough money to buy back the things pawned in the morning, they can recover them. Sometimes the man does not come back, because he is ashamed of not having found work in town. In one industrial zone, there is a place called “Lin-Hmaw-Gone” which means “the place where you look forward to your husband coming back”, because many people go there in the morning to the local pawnbroker.

Yet Burma has a wealth of natural resources…

We have offshore oil and gas. We sell it to Thailand and we are supposed to sell it to China and India, but where is the electricity for the population? In Rangoon, at night, they have to alternate the electricity supply between neighbourhoods. Children still have to study by candlelight! We also export the best wood in the world, especially to Europe, but the victims of Cyclone Nargis still don’t have a home because they do not have the money to buy the timber.

Interview by Samuel Grumiau

Interview gratefully taken from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) website

The ITUC represents 170 million workers in 312 affiliated national organisations from 157 countries. http://www.youtube.com/ITUCCSI