"Dare to struggle, dare to win: Workers’ resistance since the coup", 18 February 2022

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On October 14 last year, about 350 workers at the Gasan Apparel factory in Hlaing Tharyar went on strike over pay cuts and reductions in benefits. The strike continued into early November, when soldiers and police raided the factory and the strikers were forced to flee. 

Workers say senior management called in junta forces to put down the strike. Management also told the workers that the factory would close in December because of a lack of orders. However, a worker interviewed in January for this article said the threat to shutter the factory – which remains open – was a ploy by the owner to sack unionised workers and avoid paying them severance. 

“The workers had the right to receive severance pay and demanded to receive it but management refused,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified. “Soldiers came, but the workers had solidarity and continued to demand severance pay and the employer eventually agreed to pay.  You can say that we were victorious.”

Then on December 8, about 800 workers at a factory in Shwepyithar Township, which they asked not be identified, began a strike that lasted 11 days and also ended in a victory for workplace solidarity.

The workers’ demands were for the employer to stop cutting the bonuses of employees who were unable to work every day, serve better quality rice in the factory canteen, and sack a human resources manager accused of constant harassment. The workers achieved their demands, including the removal of the human resources manager. They also held a workplace election to choose a new executive committee for their factory-level union.

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