Myanmar

Myanmar: a challenge for unions

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) exists to certify that products coming from the world’s forests are produced responsibly. You may never had heard about the FSC, but if you look around your home, you’ll see its logo everywhere — on your toilet paper, inside your books, maybe even on your furniture. The Bonn-based global organisation is a network of over 1,200 members in 89 countries. Some of those are corporations, some are non-governmental organisations (e.g., Greenpeace), some are individuals. And some are even trade unions — large, well-known unions. These include UNIFOR in Canada, IG...

How to help Myanmar

The purpose of this article is to provide the opinions of Burmese leftists on the issue of how the global left could help Myanmar. To do so, I have reached out to four different leftists in Myanmar, each representing a unique left-wing tendency. The first person I contacted was comrade Theo Maung, a democratic socialist who is now serving in a revolutionary militia for the Burma Revolutionary Army, a left-wing militia group. Theo expressed that it would be valuable to have technical and tactical support, such as education on modern agricultural and livestock technologies. With the access to...

How to help Myanmar

The purpose of this article is to provide the opinions of Burmese leftists on the issue of how the global left could help Myanmar. To do so, I have reached out to four different leftists in Myanmar, each representing a unique left-wing tendency. The first person I contacted was comrade Theo Maung, a democratic socialist who is now serving as a revolutionary militia for the Burma Revolutionary Army, a left-wing militia group. Theo expressed that it would be valuable to have technical and tactical support, such as education on modern agricultural and livestock technologies. With the access to...

Strikers arrested by Myanmar military

Hosheng Myanmar is a garment factory in Yangon, Myanmar. Hosheng Myanmar Garment Co. Ltd. is owned by Chinese nationals and is affiliated with international brands such as Zara and Inditex. The Hosheng workers’ union was born a few months ago in the hope of fighting for their rights and organising strikes. The daily pay rate for each worker was reportedly $2. The union recently had a strike campaign to ask for a pay increase of $3 US daily from the original $2 US, leading 600 workers from the garment factory not to work since 14 June. Military officers and police officers came to the Hosheng...

A new Social Democratic Party in Burma?

Comrade Kyaw Ko Ko, a well-known social democratic leader from Social Democratic United Front and The Social Democrat Post, has recently founded another social democratic political Party in Burma

Political hypocrisy and apologism in Burma

Hein Htet Kyaw writes on the need to denounce and oppose oppression whether the victims are Rohingya or Uyghur The Myanmar (Burma) military has been committing crimes against humanity, massacres, and genocides against several ethno-religious communities in Myanmar since the last century. Myanmar has a civil war that is almost eight decades long, and the military is guilty of a lot of mass murdering, police brutality, and oppressions against Burmese from many different religious groups, ethnic groups, and social classes. The Myanmar military has held power since 1959 through a number of coups...

Myanmar migrant workers

More than a million Myanmar working-class people are unemployed, according to data given by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 18 months after the brutal military takeover. According to fresh figures made public by the ILO, employment for both men and women is down by 1.1 million, and the quality of work is declining compared to 2020. Thus, workers from Burma (Myanmar) have no choice but to become migrant workers in neighbouring countries. However, the Burmese expatriate workforce is also purportedly being targeted by the military junta in Myanmar as well. The Myanmar military regime...

The fight for labour unions: Myanmar Pou Chen workers

Myanmar Pou Chen workers demand a wage rise, October 2022 Under Taiwanese ownership, the Myanmar Pou Chen facility makes more than 38,000 pairs of Adidas shoes every day. However, the company didn’t pay enough for its workers to withstand the rising cost of essentials amidst the bad economic conditions. The workers requested a raise in the daily wage from 4,800 kyats to 8,000 kyats due to the economic situation and the rising cost of essentials. With a three-day strike in October, the workers demanded answers to 21 problems, including low pay and workplace discrimination. More than 2,000...

Trotskyism in Myanmar

After the “Burmese route to Socialism” programme of Ne Win (military dictator 1962-88), there were a few dissenters in Myanmar from the mainstream doctrine of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism. The very first revolutionary who was labelled as Trotskyist was a Burmese communist leader named Thakin Soe. However, Thakin Soe’s analysis doesn’t represent Trotskyism at all despite rumours that Thakin Soe claimed to admire Leon Trotsky and showed his eagerness to read Trotsky’s books. In 21st century, with the help of technology, alternative ideologies were discussed which are different from Stalinism and...

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