Transcript: Episode #109: Working Class Hero
Following is the full transcript for the interview with Stephen Campbell, which appeared on June 23, 2022. This transcript was made possible by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has not been checked by any human reader. Because of this, many of the words may not be accurate in this text. This is particularly true of speakers who have a stronger accent, as AI will make more mistakes interpreting and transcribing their words. For that reason, this transcript should not be cited in any article or document without checking the timestamp to confirm the exact words that the guest has really said.
Host 01:06
Thank you for joining us for the next hour or two in this episode of insight Myanmar podcast. In an age of nearly limitless content, we appreciate that you're choosing to take valuable time out of your day to learn more about what is happening in Myanmar. It is vital for the story to continue to be heard by people around the world. And that starts right now with you.
Brad 02:00
He really, that really, really nice, good day. So my guest today is Steven, who's going to be talking to us about a topic that is both incredibly important and chronically overlooked. And that is the role of workers, laborers and labor unions in Myanmar, both in the current context and in a historical context. And I have slight trepidation. This is a topic that I'm not familiar with. And I'm very much looking forward to, to being educated on this topic. So Steven, could you briefly introduce yourself for the listeners and give us give us a bit of a history of labor movements in Myanmar oversight last century?
Stephen Campbell 03:12
Okay, well, first, thanks for having me. My name is Steven Campbell. I'm an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. I've been doing research on labor issues in Myanmar and among Myanmar, micro workers in Thailand, and Singapore for about 12 or so years now. So in that research, I've been involved in looking at the current conditions of workers. But I've also looked at the history of the labor movement in Myanmar. So most of the Burmese language histories of labor in Myanmar, identify the years just following World War One as the emergence of the first identifiable collective actions by wage workers. And this was mostly on the oil fields in Maguey region, what we now call Maguey region. And so this was the start of the identify a labor identifiable labor movement, when unions first emerged in the 20s. And the British colonial government, in response introduced labor laws to contain this. And this moving on the oil fields really reached its peak in 1938, when there was a huge and very politically significant workers strike on the oil fields that erupted involving over 10,000 workers. And it involved a march of workers to Yangon. In the end, the strike wasn't successful. But it was significant politically because it really catalyzed much of the other anti colonial struggles at that time, including students strikes and peasant uprisings. And so a lot of workers today often look back on that, that moment. 1938 And one of the key organizers that can pull it at is quite pivotal and central to sort of the history of the labor movement in Myanmar. Now, after World War Two, there was a flourishing of labor movements, labor unions and federations that were often associated with different political parties, but with the Communist Party, or with the Socialist Party, as well as some that were independent. But when the military coup happened in 1962, these unions were effectively rendered unlawful, and the military government and the newly established Burma socialist program party replaced the space of unions with these official industrial dispute tribunals. So these were restrictive in the sense that workers weren't able to form their own unions. But there was nonetheless a certain kind of space in which workers could take grievances to these tribunals. And given the the ideology of the socialist period, there was a sense on our part to some older workers who were working as particularly construction workers were working as construction workers in the socialist period. And they say that, likely if the employer was a private employer, then the workers would often win their disputes. However, there if the employer was a government or office, then the employees often lost their their disputes during the socialist period. So it was a bit a bit ambivalent, that this this process, so and there were certain ways in which it did strengthen the position of workers relatively. But then in 1988, things seriously changed. There was a big uprising of workers in of course, many people are familiar with the 1988 popular uprising. But within that uprising, a really important component of it were workplaces, informal unions that were established very quickly, at workplaces around the country. And these were organized by the workers themselves, and often coordinated with other people involved in the uprising. And many really important labor organizers. Were involved in this. But of course, with the repression that followed the 1988 uprising, many of the labor activists were arrested. And the unions that have been formed informally during the uprising, had to go underground or dissolve. So after that, there was a lot of underground activism of the labor activists who are committed to both the democracy movement but still more explicitly focused on the labor movement and organizing workers. So that continued under the really repressive Florrick and then SPDC governments. But then, of course, with the the shift with the new constitution in 2008. And with the shift to quasi civilian rule, following the November 2010 elections, there was a push to increase the legal space for workers to organize. So this was in part because the new administration wants you to attract investment by Western corporations, and particularly in the garment sector, Western brands. And so the thing saying government, following the integration of within saying, and the USDP government in 2011, worked closely with the International Labor Organization, and brought out two important laws. So the first was in 2011. This was the labor organization law, which gave workers the right to form unions. And then in 2012, the labor dispute resolution law which allowed for tripartite collective bargaining by workers, whether workers inside a union or workers without a formal union. So these two new laws, radically changed the space for organizing for workers compared to the pre the period from 1988 to 2010. So a lot of workers after the 2011 and 2012 labor laws were introduced, really took the opportunity to to organize the workplaces, and to really push for improvements in force wages, but also other areas of working conditions because the situation was very deplorable. Not only were wages really low, but working hours were extremely long. And often management was able to rule very arbitrarily in the workplace. So over the next decade of the what's often identified as the democratic transition are often called the democratic transition. There was a flurry of worker organizing, and such that we within a space over a decade, and just up to the months preceding the coup, there were close to 3000 registered workplace unions in the country. Now some of these may have formed and registered with the government and subsequently dissolved or falling apart. But nonetheless, on the books, there was just slightly under 3000 registered workplace union. So it's quite significant growth of unions in the country over that 10 year period. And it really speaks to the energy and the commitment and the determination of the workers. But nonetheless, in that, that period, there was also a lot of barriers and challenges. So the many of the workers found the workers that I spoke to doing research in the industrial zones around Yangon often felt that the township conciliation bodies, which were the ones responsible for arbitrating the initial dispute resolution between workers and employers, so a lot of the workers that I've spoken with have often felt that these bodies were biased on the size of employers, and that the labor law inspections department wouldn't visit factories to actually inspect working conditions. So although there were new laws that legalize the space for workers to organize, and there were also new workplace health and safety laws, for example, and there was a minimum wage law that was introduced during that 10 years before the coup. Nonetheless, in practice, many, many workplaces across the country remained effectively outside of the official labor legislation, simply because the labor laws were not being effectively enforced. So it would be quite common with people in various sectors in service and manufacturing, and of course, resource extraction, that the wages and working conditions that they experienced, were radically different than what on paper, they would be eligible to receive under the new labor legislation. So this was an ongoing struggle during the 10 years of the so called transition between workers who are pushing to not only organize unions, but also push to have their workplaces in compliance with the law. And this is really, I think, an important point, because the a lot of the organizing that happened, the workers were not initially making demands for anything more than they were already legally do. So the workers were pushing to get the our township conciliation bodies, or the regional or state level arbitration bodies to simply enforce the existing law. And but nonetheless, on the most part, a lot of the workplaces were in violation. So that's kind of a a broad brush history of the labor movement. And I'd be happy to go into more specific detail on any of the any of the issues, if you want to ask more specifically.
Brad 13:08
I mean, absolutely. I want to thank you for that. That was a very comprehensive overview of the history. But I want to sort of make sure that I get my bearings on on some of these concepts. And I'm going to move away from the Myanmar context. First, what I want to ask you really is, what are the differences in the role that unions have within the culture, how they perceived in the West, unions have very often been perceived as the sort of the working man struggle aids, they're very often associated, especially in the modern era with left wing movements, especially behind the Iron Curtain unions were ubiquitous, but they were controlled by the state, realistically. And so unions are perceived in very specific ways in the West. Is the perception similar in Myanmar with regard to unions, or is there a different culture?
Stephen Campbell 14:06
Great question. So definitely during the so called socialist period, the government was very assertive and trying to control the workers movement. On the one hand, it granted substantial benefits to workers, workers who are in waged employment or often have access to various kinds of labor law and workplace benefits. And this isn't necessarily because the Burma socialist program party was in fact committed to socialist ideals. In fact, a lot of scholars argue that the Burma socialist program Party wasn't in fact committed to socialist ideals, but nonetheless, at the time, it took power there was a significant workers movement, and leftist ideas were very legitimate. Proceed with a lot of whites had a lot of widespread support whether these were seen as socialist or communist. The historian Robert Robert Taylor Has this statement that I often cite, which is that Following independence in 1948, nearly every articulate nationalist politician in the country claimed to be a socialist, Marxist or communist. So this was the the ideological and political context of the early years after independence, whether people were on the communist side or on the socialist side. Nonetheless, it was a leftist government facing leftist opposition, there was very little space in which there was a right wing politics Grant had a lot of traction. And during the socialist period, the official ideology was that workers and peasants were pivotal to the country's prosperity. And so this actually did lead to certain tangible benefits to workers, the peasants. But they got increasingly restrictive as time went by indefinitely, the government didn't in fact adhere to this. There were quite violent repression of workers in 1974. But nonetheless, ideologically, this was the case. Now after 88, this situation radically changed and workers space for worker organizing was incarcerated. And ideologically, the, the ideology of the ruling Hunter shifted from a social compact between the government and workers and peasants to one where the government was what's often called it's a system of crony capitalism, where the government, the military Hunter, aligned itself with an emerging capitalist class that emerged as the military sold off state assets, often to themselves to their family members. So the period after 1988 was one in which the labor movement was in the official discourse, official ideology of the military Hunter was D legitimized, and effectively erased. However, there continued to be many people, many activists and many people in the democracy movement, who had, of course, historical memory, or connections to the earlier leftist politics of Myanmar, which were incredibly important and formative for the country. So I've spoken with people, older people with older labor activists who were also working in organizing during, in the years before 88. And they still have a lot of respect for a lot of these leftist activists, not necessarily be formal leftist, leftist activist in, for example, the former socialist program party, which is very much discredited, and very few people look at it at that party favorably. But instead, the leftist activists who are more independent often writers, and journalists and public intellectuals, some really important figures that I look up to, such as Milton Aung, who wasn't really important leftist in public intellectual who wrote novels and edited a newspaper and magazine and wrote books about the labor movement. And these these books about workers struggles and about peasant struggles and leftist politics continued to be read by activists in Myanmar. And so there is this undercurrent of the sense of legitimacy of the workers movement and workers struggles, and a leftist peasant politics, that officially on the surface when people vote to Myanmar, often this is not what comes across. Because, of course, in the official politics, that kind of prominent politics that people saw that foreigners saw when they went to Myanmar after 2010 was very much a sort of standard neoliberal politics. That downplayed the significance, significance of workers movements. But nonetheless, a lot of the activists that I've talked to still look back on on the influence of the leftist, the 20th century leftist movement as an important part of their own heritage. So it's a leads to a contradictory situation where people often look at the term socialist program party as a very discredited political party, and as representing a politics that nobody wants to go back to. But at the same time, there is a sense that there is a leftist politics and a history of leftist politics in Myanmar, that is very important and venerable and worthy of returning to and remembering and rethinking for its relevance in the present. So there are labor activists in Myanmar that were up until the trough. And that were when I was doing my research in the industrial zones around gone around Yangon in 2019, who identified very much with a leftist politics, while at the same time rejecting both the Burma socialist program party as well as my Much of what the Communist Party of Burma developed into, because in its later years, it moved very much away from the kind of organized workers movement that it was originally connected with. So we have that in the present. But at the same time we had after 2010, the ILO and international organizations were involved in cultivating or working with the newly elected quasi civilian government to establish labor laws that were more familiar with in Western countries as kind of the sort of, quote unquote, responsible unions that aren't radical or revolutionary. They're merely there to improve working conditions and facilitate these kind of smooth operation of capitalist industry. And that's the kind of labor union that I think the laws that were introduced in 2011, and 2012, were geared to cultivate. So there was one ILO advisor that I have sometimes cited, who spoke of the 2011 in 2012, labor laws as serving to mitigate strikes. So the aim was to provide channels for workers to address their workplace concerns without going on strikes, and therefore, for facilitating the smooth and non disrupted operations of the government and other manufacturing sectors. And in one respect, I think that's there's something perhaps commendable to that insofar as is actually delivering work to workers, their their demands, and the the what they're eligible for under labor law. But there weren't, for me, it's labor activists who were very critical of this, who felt that these laws were in fact, geared at restricting workers ability to disrupt production, because when workers are able to disrupt production, that's typically where they're when and where they're able to actually make significant gains. So these are some of the maybe contradictory or countervailing forces that were at play. On the one hand, his rich leftist history of labor, organizing and leftist politics, on the other hand, a very kind of top down and bureaucratic imposition of, of this formal union, legislative bureaucratic structures. So I think I'll,
Brad 22:33
so I mean, it's probably worth an entire episode. And it's I mean, it's actually probably worth an entire university course in itself, to examine the many times in history where we've had ostensibly left leaning, and socially oriented, or even genuinely, to an extent left leaning and socially oriented political movements become corrupted by authoritarianism, or totalitarianism, or or other sort of vestiges that we associate with, with the far right. And certainly we've seen that have played out multiple times in the Western political sphere. But what I want to ask is, you mentioned on multiple occasions, peasants, and the labor unions, as I understand them, are most often associated with factory workers. So while we're talking about the ideological and and sort of, historical basis of these movements, recently, Myanmar, marked the peasants day, which is a somewhat complicated day, but it does sort of hint back at revolutions or uprisings that were led by farmers against British colonial rule and against their their mistreatment by the British colonial government. Would you say that the labor union, the labor movement that we see, was in part born out of those agricultural uprisings against the colonial power?
Stephen Campbell 24:05
Okay, excellent question. In the colonial period, the the usually distinguish between the emergence of the labor unions and the workers movements in the oil fields and McLean, and the, the peasant movement, which is often really associated with the early 1930s Peasant uprising, that's often called the CSM rebellion. So in most of the history that I've read, these are treated as somewhat, somewhat separate, but they did have connections with some of the individuals involved. But they also I think, have more of they're kind of separate lineages. However, in the 1930s, there were when there was a lot more explicit, thinking about leftist politics. There was a lot more explicit effort at connecting these. So especially in 1938, which was a really important moment that I mentioned before the oil workers strike erupted at the started the year. And then the leftist student activists in Yangon and elsewhere reached out to the workers and connected with them and connected the student movement and the students strikes and uprising to the workers movement and then sought to connect it also to the situation of peasants and smallholder farmers around the country. So there was an explicit activist effort at at connection and establishing coalitions and connecting these struggles and helping people to see that these were, in fact interconnected, rather than separate issues. So rather than this having a kind of an originary organic connection, although it did at some level, but that the the politics of coming to see them as connected was very conscious and very, was driven by activists who had this politics in mind. And I think that's one of the limits of some of the ways in which civil society organizations over the last 10 years had not to the same had not had the same success in connecting rural peasant movements with urban wage worker movements with the student movement. So there definitely were activists in Myanmar, who were making these connections over the last 10 years. But they did not have definitely the same success that the was had by students, workers and peasants and connecting these struggles in the colonial period. And they definitely do need to be connected, because the one of the pressing issues for workers during the 10 years before the coup was that they were extremely dependent on wages. And part of the issue was that there was this especially after 19 819 88, a huge process of land dispossession, where a lot of smallholders lost the land, through military seizures, or corporate seizures of land, with a man would just be taken away. And as a result, those who lost the land became radically dependent on the market and radically dependent on wages. So they were then compelled to take on what were often precarious and low wage jobs in urban areas, because they had lost their land through often outright land theft in the countryside. So there is this really important connection between the situation and the conditions and the wages of urban wage workers and the the politics of peasantry in the countryside.
Brad 27:41
Okay, so let's, let's sort of move the calendar forward now, a little bit. So we've gone through independence, we've gone through the socialist period. And we're now looking at what I would sort of tentatively call the full democracy period, starting in about 2010. So labor unions were illegal, notionally, and they were really legalized in 2011. So how how much progress has actually been made through the labor union movement to improve the conditions and the lives of workers in Myanmar. Since then,
Stephen Campbell 28:21
there have been immense successes over the last 10 years or the 10 years before the coup by worker organizers, especially factory worker organizers, in the industrial zones around Yangon and elsewhere around Mendeley, for example. I mentioned earlier that close to 3000, workplace unions have been registered in that period. But more immediately, workers were able to make gains, not only with wages, but in their ability to play a part in determining the conditions of their workplace. For example, many employers imposed forced overtime, so that the employer would say everyone's working overtime. And if a worker didn't want to do it, the employer might simply lock the factory gates and not let them leave, or might threaten to fire them. And so one of the successes of unions over this period was to be able to assert control over issues like that, so that workers would not be forced to do overtime. Or they were able to make things on very, we might say simple and immediate things like getting toilets fixed at a factory, or improving the conditions of ventilation, not having doors on the factory gates locked while they're in the workplace. And so there was extremely important games. And aside from the gains of the individual workplace, the gains of the workers to establish collective organizations was extremely important. And this played a part in In the post coup movement, I may be jumping ahead to what could be a future question here. But the the amount of organizing that went on in the 10 years before the coup in the establishment of formal unions, as well as the establishment of informal workplace forms of organizing were a major factor in why with these workers were able immediately after the coup on February 6 2021, to organize a protest in downtown Yangon, when 4000 factory workers, most of whom were young women, some of them as young as 16, went down to downtown Yangon to protest the coup. And the reason one of the major reasons why they were able to do that is because they had already formed these unions and establish these organizing networks in the industrial zones over the 10 years leading up to the coup. And so that, that organizing, the organizing successes of industrial workers, was a major factor in the February 6 protest movement, which itself catalyzed a lot of the subsequent protest movements in the country after the coup. So I have nothing but praise and respect for those factory workers in the organizing. At the same time, having settled that a lot of the organizing for logistical and other reasons, was concentrated in areas like the industrial zones around Yangon or Mandalay or Pergo. And so other parts of the country had egregious working conditions with wages well below the legal minimum. And the workers often had no exposure to worker activists, or exposure to labor law, or even knowledge of labor law that they might be able to use as a basis for organizing. And so the the conditions and some, especially the extractive industries, in the mines, for example, or in the offshore raft fishing industry, were absolutely horrendous. And that's definitely an area where, where it was much more difficult for workers to organize. And it was also an area or an area of employment, that it was much more difficult for urban student activists or labor activists to connect with. So there were definitely sentiments with people in labor activists and other activists who wanted to reach out to workers and other sectors in rural areas. But for many logistical and other reasons, it was much more difficult to do that. Whereas in the industrial zones around Yangon, they're relatively close to downtown Yangon. So people can take a bus from downtown Yangon and get to the industrial zones in under an hour. And so, as a result, it was much easier for workers in these industrial zones to travel to downtown Yangon to maybe attend labor workshops for for activists in Yangon to to travel out to the industrial zones to meet with them to learn from worker activists. And so that sort of connection between worker activists, worker organizers and activists, political activists outside of the workplaces was definitely much more possible at places like the industrial zones around Yangon.
Brad 33:26
And so you've sort of, um, you've touched on a lot of different things that I want to delve into. And it's definitely with regard to the role that unions have currently and will continue to have in the restoration of democracy. I'm definitely going to, to come back to that. But one thing that I just wanted to sort of look into Myanmar is not a particularly how should I put this particularly diverse economy, a huge part of the economy is extraction, particularly when it comes to petrochemicals, but mining raw minerals, precious stones, things like this are also considerable parts of the economy. The second largest segment of the economy is I believe, textile exports. So is there in your opinion, any sort of difference in the efficacy that labor unions have been allowed to have in those major industries that have a lot of government interest in stakeholders versus smaller industries, which the government is not as interested in?
Stephen Campbell 34:34
Well, from my experience, most of my research has been with factory workers in the industrial zones around Yangon. And as I understand it, the constant the labor unions have been concentrated in these industrial zones in garment factories or in other factories in the industrial zones producing often for export, which could be footwear factories, or apparel, factories or factories producing bags for example. And as I understand it, that the the, the success of labor organizing in, for example, mining is much, much lower. There are I've spoken to mine workers who have formed unions, but they are the ones that I spoke with had not had much success in in using that that organizing to, to make advances, but they were the only established quite recently. So definitely the the success of unions in the factories or in some the train railway operators, for example, was much more successful. I don't know if we can say it's because the government allowed that to happen in the garment sector, but didn't allow it to happen in the mining sector, that that's, I think an argument could be made for that. Because one of the it appears that one of the motivations for allowing unions and for allowing the union legislation to pass is to be able to attract foreign and particularly Western apparel brands, who often have certain kinds of, or they tried to maintain a certain kind of corporate social responsibility persona. And of course, that can be critiqued a lot about the efficacy of that. But nonetheless, there was a sense in which they did not want to get their brands tarnished by association with blatantly liberal labor practices. And so, before 2010, a lot of brands did not want to source their products from Myanmar. But with the enactment of the labor organization law and dispute resolution law in 2012, that we had big name, corporations like h&m, Zara, Adidas gap, and many others who felt that the new space of the legislative space in the country, and the so called transition more broadly, was such that they could source garments in Myanmar without worrying about any kind of boycotts or social media kind of bad melting of their practices in Myanmar. That's, of course change now, and a lot of brands are rethinking their, their sourcing of, of garments from Myanmar. But nonetheless, after 2011, the new laws that that changed. And so I think that a good argument, a strong argument can be made for saying that the government allowed the, a certain amount of union organizing space in order to make the Western investors in particular, more or less wary. Not that of course, these brands want to work with unions. But it was just so egregious before that many of them would have been quickly targeted in in campaigns, I'm talking about the years before 2010. And, of course, there were sanctions at the time anyway, so it was very difficult. So those new laws also were aimed at getting the sanctions removed. But then there's a lot of the activists who said that these these laws were passed, to get sanctions removed and to get investment. But on the ground, there were still a lot of barriers to actually organizing because when workers tried to organize, they confronted all kinds of barriers, not only the intransigence of the township level conciliation officers, but also in certain cases of the police. And so what was on paper in law was often quite different from what workers experienced in practice. But definitely, it was relatively, it seems relatively easier for workers to organize in garment factories producing for export than it was for workers to organize in the mines in kitchen state, for example, or Shan state.
Brad 39:07
So interesting. So on that particular topic of Western influence, or foreign company influence, I mean, companies like the gap, for example, have historically come under fire multiple multiple times for the conditions that their workers are in particularly in the gaps case, I know, particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan. Now, on the whole thing, this is a very complicated question. Is the presence of these Western companies a net benefit to Myanmar workers in the Myanmar economy? Or would we classify this as exploitation still?
Stephen Campbell 39:46
Well, it's definitely a complicated and multifaceted question, because one of the challenges is that it's often framed in isolation. So for example, all else being the same way would not be better for this factory to be here and at least offer these jobs versus not being there. And asked in isolation like that I think the argument could be made for Well, of course, if that's the only difference, then at least having the option of taking a job would be better than not having that option. However, the expansion of garment factories in Myanmar is tied up with a larger development process that also has a lot of negative impacts that can't be separated from the expansion or proliferation of garment factories. And what I'm suggesting is that the the process of rural development in Myanmar, the process of the shifts to large scale plantations, and the extractive industries that you mentioned earlier, mining, strip mining, corporate plantations, aquaculture farm industrial level aquaculture farms that involved or were preceded by mass land dispossession of rural smallholders. This is part of the same development process that also entails the increase of garment factories in the urban industrial zones. So for that reason, I don't think we can say for at least ask the question in isolation of, isn't it better to have the garment factories offering these jobs, even if they're located versus not having them? Because asking at that level, I think the answer would be yes, it's better to have the option of going to the job than not. However, if we ask it instead, as a, as a multifaceted question that, would you want a development agenda that simultaneously robs people of their rural livelihoods while offering them in exchange? Low wage, precarious urban wage labor? It seems to me that's the question that needs to be asked. And that's a broader question about the development paradigm or the development agenda that the people of Myanmar want for their country going forward? So that wasn't the question that was asked to people there was it was asked in isolation, about, here's these factories, would you like to go work in that factory, if you don't want to work in it? That's your choice. However, people were not really given the option of discussing because it was rendered technical in a way that the sort of development agenda for Myanmar is simply it's a technical question, not a political question. This is how it was framed, and was, in my view sold to people in Myanmar, he was framed as the way to improve the living standards of the people in the country, is to deregulate foreign investment to massively increase foreign investment, and to increase foreign investment into rural extractive industries, even if this involves pushing people out of the rural areas. And this was legitimated by simultaneously offering in exchange, the opportunity to work at these low wage precarious government jobs. So for that reason, it seems to me that we need to think the urban and the rural together. And what happened in the rural areas, even throughout the so called transition or what you refer to as the period of full democracy was continued land theft. And people who had previously had their land stolen, found it very difficult to to get it back. Of course, there were these famous cases like the Leopard on copper mine, but there were, of course cases across the country. And what happened as a result is that people ended up without land and therefore even more dependent on wage relations. And this exacerbated the outmigration people leaving the country for wage labor abroad. And of course, people should have the freedom to go abroad if they want to work. So it's not a matter of saying, Should people be allowed to go abroad for wage employment in other countries, but rather, instead, we need to look at the the push factors that are pushing people out of the rural areas, and one of the major push factors was a loss of land that was tied to an expansion of foreign investment as well as domestic invents investment in rural extractive industries.
Brad 44:15
Okay, and so let's, let's focus a little bit on even closer to the to the present. Now, under this 10 year period, you're saying that the unions have made huge advances and and they've had tangible, measurable benefits despite what corruption has existed despite what impediments have been put up by self interested stakeholders. Progress has been high. So it seems that there is momentum behind the labor union. Is there a fear on the on the part of the workers that the military coup represents a backtracking of the progress they've made?
Stephen Campbell 44:54
Yes, definitely. Shortly after the coup last year, I'm As a research colleague of mine, Burmese colleague of mine, and I did some interviews and with workers about their immediate concerns, and some of them said, just that, that they were concerned that as the military took power, it would go back to the situation it was before 2011, where unions would be, if not legally criminalized, at least in practice, restricted, and that employers would take the opportunity provided by military rule to suppress wages, and to get rid of union organizers in the workplace, and to degrade working conditions. And that was interviews that we did just after the coup in just two or three days after to just recently in the past month, my colleague komang, and I wrote an op ed based on new interviews with workers in the industrial zones around Yangon. And what they said, in fact, confirmed their earlier fears. The employers had taken advantage of that the situation of martial law that was introduced to suppress wages, to degrade working conditions and to fire union organizers. So one example is that the official minimum wage in Myanmar is 4800 chat for an eight hour workday. And what happened was that initially, after the coup, a lot of factories shut down, and many workers went back temporarily, to their home villages. And then after a couple of months, many of them could not survive with their home villages and came back. But when they came back their employers, in many cases, put them on instead, a, what they call a probationary sets a wage of only 3600 chat, which is the amount of the previous minimum wage. And they were told that they were now no longer salaried employees. But in fact, they rate casual laborers, so that there was no guarantee of work on any given day. And if there was any sort of disagreement, the employer could simply say, You're not coming back tomorrow. So this is a very different situation for many of these workers than it was before the coup, because many of them, especially in workplaces, and factories, where they had established unions would be able to contest that sort of arbitrary behavior on the part of the management so that if managers tried to do something like that, the entire workforce would go on strike. So for that reason, managers were reluctant to abuse a situation so egregiously, but since the coup that's that's very much what's happened. And so many workers are in extremely precarious situation now, and they're finding it very difficult to organize. However, there is still organizing going on. So it has not been an absolute elimination of all worker organizing, following NYCLU. And that's also I think, really important, because for people to want to be in solidarity with the people with Myanmar who are struggling against military rule, one of the the spaces or places or people or groups to be in solidarity with our workers in the factories who continue to organize, despite the difficulties they face. And there have been a couple of victories over the last year of workers who are able to go on strike and make gains, despite the conditions of martial law.
Brad 48:32
So what, what really strikes me, and this may just be my cynicism and western perspective coming in. But the things that you're talking about these probationary wages, and just for those sitting at home, who, who have not done the mathematics here, 4800 chat, at the moment will fetch you approximately $2.70 US per day, which even by Myanmar standards, is not is not really a surviving wage. Maybe if you're really holding back and you live by yourself, but even then it will be quite difficult. So these these low minimum wages, this expectation that they will just be easier some bargaining to make up the gap of these these temporary low payments and the shift towards what we are referring to in the West as the gig economy, where you're just working a job when they call you to come in for a job. And if there's no job, you don't come in and you don't get paid. These are things that we're seeing versions of in Western markets, whether it's in the European Union, whether it's in the United States, whether it's in Australia, what have you is, I know I'm calling for conjecture, but is there some sort of information flow between the people who make these sorts of decisions in Myanmar and the people who make the equivalent decisions in Western countries do you think or are they just independently coming to the same conclusion? So
Stephen Campbell 50:00
my guess would be that they're independently coming to the same conclusions. It's sort of It's a the logical outcome of managers and employers asserting control, because employers want well disciplined labor at the lowest possible price. And that means to just push for lower lowest price, and to push her casualization and to suppress working conditions and wages. And when that happens, they and there's no organized worker opposition, or other means of countering it, it leads to this casualization. So even in a lot of the kind of European American or other Western countries that had significant welfare states in the mid 20th century, before those, those welfare states were established with really high levels of unionization, the workers in those countries also, were facing the sort of casual employment conditions that we're seeing increasingly with the gig economy. So it's not such an anomaly now. But also, even during that period of really high unionization in the North Atlantic, in Western countries, in the mid 20th century, there were still significant parts of the population, often racialized minorities, women and migrants who were effectively excluded from these unionized us, quote, unquote, good, unionized jobs. So in that sense, it's not such a stretch to see the kind of continuity or similarity between these conditions.
Brad 51:36
Okay, so. So we're seeing a very realistic, very tangible fear with the coming from workers, and it's it is understandable. I mean, you mentioned that the minimum wage was raised from 3600 to 4800. And that that appears to be a significant jump. Right? It appears to be, you're adding on a third, that's a very generous increase. But of course, the unions are asking for significantly more than that. And considering the cost of living in a major city like Yangon, they were so the fears that the workers are facing or that they're fearing, feeling sorry, are quite realistic and quite tangible. Let's focus on the reaction to this. So you say that the workers protested on the sixth of February? Yes, what we saw in March, specifically, I believe it was the 14th of March was an incredibly harsh crackdown, in hindsight, which is an industrial zoning, Yangon, where I believe 70 people protesting in the industrial zones were were shot dead by the military. Is is the military, specifically targeting or treating differently, protesting industrial zones?
Stephen Campbell 52:53
Well, that's definitely what it looks like, at least for February and March of last year after the after the coup. So workers, industrial workers, factory workers, were, as I mentioned, a catalyst on February 6, of the larger protest movement across the country. And they continued after February 6, to conduct protests in downtown Yangon, as well as do strikes at their workplace and conduct protests on the streets of the industrial zones. And so it definitely seems that they were subsequently targeted for this. There was on in late February, I believe it was February 26, the hunter declared 16 of the country's most prominent trade unions and labor organizations illegal and threatened to arrest labor activists who continue to organize anti coup activities. And it was after that, as workers continue to organize that the police and military attack protesting workers in fight Day on March 14, and According to Human Rights Watch, it's it was at least 65 protesters who were killed but as you mentioned, it's likely higher than that, in practice. So and after that moment, the the hunter declared martial law. So it had already been a state of emergency since the coup but after that, the hunter declared martial law over not only like they are but also Srbija on North Dakota and South Dakota, to kind of sneak in and North Ocula. So the conditions of martial law created even more restrictions for worker organizing in the industrial zones. So this definitely seems to me that it's a response to the the efficacy of these industrial workers in their organizing in their anti coup protests. And the big concern of the hunter that this is a a serious cut. political constituency in the protest movement, that if the workers are able to organize, they can actually have a significant impact on the military, and the military's ability to run the country. Because not only the workers in the garment factories are protesting, but also subsequently, workers in a whole range of, of sectors. So this includes, of course, the railway workers, workers in mines, workers who were producing military equipment at a military controlled factory went on strike, the logistics workers at the Yangon port went on strike, and that effectively shut down trade at the Afghan pork. So this, the capacity of workers to shut the country down through strikes, is, as I see it, a a serious strength and capacity that the workers have that that politicians who are more prominent don't have. They are often, you know, able to make statements and political statements. But they of course, don't have the capacity because they're not in their kind of location is not such that they can go on strike and shut down the country. But the fact that workers can do this makes them a much more potential threat to the military, and thus, a with us targeted by the military.
Brad 56:24
And so let's, let's talk about why that could be. So I mean, it's one thing to look at Mammoth history, and look at workers in industries, look at farmers and look at students, all three of these categories have successfully. Four different definitions of successfully have led protests and have led uprisings. And even when they failed, of course, they've galvanized large movements, and they and they continue to be remembered. But let's look a little bit more immediately and a little bit more tangibly. So we note the military, when they were in power, they had a sort of bouts of nationalization, and then much of the industries that they control within re privatized prior to the what I refer to as the faux democracy as mjhl and MEC. So with me HL we have Myanmar economic Holdings Limited, we have a huge range of companies that generate a lot of income and generate a lot of dividends and share payments to the military. But what we have in me see the Myanmar economic Corporation is sort of a, I think we could describe it as a vertical monopoly on a lot of key industries that the military requires industries that generate that make concrete or that produce steel, and that produce raw materials that military operations depend upon. Is there a possibility here for workers to seriously financially hamstring the military? And is there a possibility for workers to seriously undermine the military's capacity to acquire material?
Stephen Campbell 58:03
Yeah, definitely, the workers in this industry is could if they organize and act collectively and go on strike, they could seriously hamstring as you said, or, or create a threat to the military's ability to manage the country and to operate. Of course, they have all the challenges like other workers in the country to organize under military rule, but it's definitely there, their positioning is is extremely significant for the possibility of them directly threatening the military. And that's seems to me extremely important for thinking strategically about how the, the uprising in Myanmar is going forward. And the kinds of strategic decisions that people make, and the areas that are focused on because, of course, there's a lot of people doing incredible, engaging, incredible struggles around the entire country. But the workers in these industries are strategically located, such that they can create a different kind of threat to the military. So you know, going forward, that would be a really impressive development. But a lot of the kind of Signet most significant or like the largest uprising of workers and worker strikes happened in the months immediately after the coup. And since then, there has been a slight, maybe decline. We could say, for example, in the garment factories, which is what I'm more familiar with, a lot of them have felt compelled to go back to work. They many of them went on strike initially, but just the the very fact of needing to support their families and themselves means that they can't continue on strike and not going to work at the factories. So as a result, this has created a lot of challenges for the kind of general strike, strike regime that was initially advanced by many of the workers. But if it were the case that the the workers that these military controlled at factories in the military controlled holding companies organized and strikes, they could definitely shut down the country shut down the military. The workers have that capacity in their hands, and in a way that opposition politicians do not
Brad 1:00:28
agreed. And I mean, I suspect I already know the answer to this. But nevertheless, militaries are themselves, ultimately, very large organized pools of disciplined and trained people. Is it possible, do you think, for the military to simply walk in and replace the workers, they definitely tried to do this with the hospitals when the medical staff protested the coup, the military sent in the medical detachment and said, well, military medics will take over the hospitals, we will run this because we're a military and we are able to do so do you think industry could similarly be overtaken by military?
Stephen Campbell 1:01:08
Again, this there's a lot of conjecture and speculation here, because a lot of what we know of the military is from an outsider's perspective. And often, there are some analysts, some Burmese analysts who argue that the military size has been inflated on paper, and this figure of, for example, three and up 350,000. People in the military may be simply on paper, whereas in practice, it may be in fact, far lower. But even still, there's, if everybody in in the factories under the military control holding companies went on strike, I don't think that the military can step in immediately and replace them, it's not so easy to take a soldier off the frontlines who's more used to shooting at civilians than he is, you know, producing cement to to switch jobs on a dime. So I don't I don't think that would be an easy and easy thing to do. In the hospitals, it makes us makes sense that there were these military medics who already had medical skills, and could be put in a hospital. But to take a soldier off the frontlines and put them in a cement factory is seems to me a different, qualitatively different kind of job transfer.
Brad 1:02:31
That makes a lot of sense. And so let's, let's look at what what the workers can actually do. Because this is this is at the very heart and essence of unions, workers can always say, Well, I'm going to take my ball and go home. But workers have homes. even under the best of circumstances, workers have to deal with the fact that they don't have an income, and they have a family that they have to feed and bills that they have to pay. And unions should in theory, be collecting union Jews, partially for the purpose of being able to sustain their workers during these times. Currently, the military is employing a practice of simply using eminent domain to seize the property of people that they have declared to be enemies of the state. And I imagined that organized labor unions under a time of what the military would call war would definitely qualify for that. So considering the very serious ramifications of protest, do you think the workers are in a position where they can pull that trigger? And say, Yes, we're just going to leave this site? Because our conditions are terrible? And we'll just deal with it?
Stephen Campbell 1:03:38
It's definitely a very, very difficult question. Because in the long term, I don't think that's sustainable. But definitely workers demonstrated the capacity and the will and the determination to do just that. Immediately following the coup, people did just walk off the job. But what we saw after a few months, was that, at least again, in the garment, and apparel factories in the industrial zones around Yangon, that I'm familiar with, that many workers felt compelled to return to work after after several months. So I think it would be it would be possible for workers to do that, in principle, to organize collectively and all go on strike at once in a general strike. But in order for that to be sustained, and we saw this in the months after the coup, is that there was a lot of support, not necessarily just by the unions, but also by ordinary people who went out to to cooperate with workers. So there was a way in which the workers are embedded in communities. They're not isolated in their workplaces. They're also part of these communities. And when the general strikes happened after the coup, there were people in the communities who were sharing food and water was striking workers. And that sort of saw linearity. And in practical Solidarity was really crucial for sustaining the general strikes in the months immediately after the coup. So if this was going to be something that workers at the military controlled holding companies were contemplating doing, that this is something that the larger community would definitely need to step in and offer support to the workers. And that's what people in Myanmar have shown time and time, again, is a willingness to do this, too, with a clear sense of solidarity to step in and, and cooperate with and support workers who are on strike. So I don't doubt that that's, that's possible, it would just entail or require a lot of organizing on the ground to coordinate this and to sustain it over a longer period of time.
Brad 1:05:54
Absolutely. So that's just sort of as a final topic, let's go even bigger picture here. Let's look at the international community. Of course, most of our audience is international. So one, one thing that has stirred up a little bit of controversy in some parts is the return of certain Western companies. Like, for example, h&m, to me, I'm not saying that, from their perspective, the reopening of the factories is a morally justifiable move, because it allows them to continue placing orders, it allows them therefore to continue funneling money that will be turned into wages, for average, everyday Myanmar people who are struggling to survive in a very difficult context. So in your opinion, what is the the most ethical and the most effective thing for the West or the outside world to be doing? Is it is it isolating Myanmar and divesting to squeeze the military? Or is it reengaging?
Stephen Campbell 1:06:51
Okay, definitely a really important question, I would say that the ethical thing to do would be to listen to the workers and Myanmar. That's definitely the the first step. Rather than trying to assess the situation and making a decision about what's appropriate or not appropriate. The first step would be to listen to workers who Myanmar, I know that a lot of the unions have come out quite prominently calling for sanctions. I think it's a very difficult question. And I think that we do need to be honest that this is it's not an easy question. There are a lot of countervailing forces here, and a lot of the workers and their families are highly dependent on these wages. So for me, I don't feel it's ethical for me to say, one way or the other, that companies should or should not be sourcing, their their garments and apparels from Myanmar. What I do think is appropriate for me to do is say that we need to listen to the workers in Myanmar. Now, this does mean that we we need to listen to these these unions that have been calling for sanctions. But even still, that there have been unions calling for this. I do think we also need to recognize that this it's not. It's not that easy. I'm I do have a lot of concern for many people, many Burmese people working at the factories that I know very well, from my time there that I I'm very concerned about their their livelihoods, their family's livelihoods. And they're in a very difficult situation where many of them are very dependent on these factory wages. So I do think this is a question that requires some humility by outsiders like us, because of the difficulty of it, but it's ultimately something that's up to the workers in Myanmar themselves.
Brad 1:08:44
Okay, I mean, that that makes a lot of sense. And it is it is a very, very complicated issue. But so would you agree that even as outsiders looking in, can we make the statement that there is both demonstrable, good and demonstrable bad in both sanctions and divestment? And in reengagement and reinvestment?
Stephen Campbell 1:09:09
Yes, yes, yes. demonstrable, good international bad refers to the tangible impact on the workers themselves? Yes, then yes, definitely. For many of these workers who are dependent on factories, jobs, if those factory jobs are not there, their situation will be worse, their their income will be down, this will impact their ability to eat. People may have to reduce their food consumption, or simply leave the country. And that's already what's happened. Because even though many factories reopened, many of them are operating at less than capacity. And over the past year, there's been this huge increase in the number of people in New York trying to get out of the country to work abroad. I'm currently based in Singapore. And I know that there has been an increased demand for young women or women Myanmar who are seeking to come to Singapore to work as domestic workers. But also to Thailand, it's been very difficult because of the border closures due to COVID. But there is a significant demand as we've seen in the kind of extended queues at the passport office in Myanmar. So there's been an evident move of many people in Myanmar to leave the country because of the decline in livelihood opportunities in work opportunities, and in the ability that they have to sustain themselves under the post coup conditions. So if the factory is closed today, this would add to that. However, that being said, many factory workers have come out and said that they support sanctions, they feel that they are willing to that this is a sacrifice that they have said that they are willing to make, because they believe it will bring the revolution closer to success or more quickly. And so that that position by the statute workers also needs to be respected. And so for these reasons, I find this to be an incredibly difficult question and difficult topic.
Brad 1:11:21
Now, and I really appreciate you, you being so candid, and and giving an honest insight. So let's be optimistic for a second. And let's look to the future let us presume that that the military dictatorship has fallen, and that democracy has been restored, we didn't spend a huge amount of time discussing the many failures of the the reforms and of the labor unions and the systems that have been placed. You definitely touched on them. With with the minimum wages not being passed on with compulsory overtime, and all these sorts of things and oversight, just simply not being carried out. What would you say would be the key moving forward, if and when this conflict is over, to ensure that the labor union is not only reestablished and protected, but fixes some of these errors.
Stephen Campbell 1:12:21
While it's the solution is organizing on the ground, its workers organizing themselves in larger and more coordinated movements. It's building on the successes that they had in organizing in the 10 years before the coup, and it's pushing those forward. It's continuing this process of collective workers struggle in the country that workers were already doing. And it's coordinating those, of course with other struggles with with student activists and with rural peasants or small holders. And in the workplace, that is ultimately in my view, what delivers on the goods, its workers being able to organize themselves and to assert their own collective power in the workplace. That's what we saw over the 10 years before the coup is where the gains happened, where workers got the minimum wage, where workers were able to improve their working conditions. It did not occur simply because the government passed a law workers did not immediately get the benefits of these new laws. It was only when the workers organized themselves. So going forward, if we imagine that the revolution has succeeded, then well, first, I would hope that there's a government that's more committed to the emancipation of workers and smallholders and the majority of people in the country. But as a strategic issue, I think that we need to support as much as possible we I mean, outsiders offer support as much as possible to workers tangibly in their efforts to organize. Because that's ultimately what's going to allow them to make claims for better working conditions and to assert their own control in the workplace.
Brad 1:14:19
Absolutely. This has been a this has been both enlightening, but also difficult that there's a lot going on in the country right now. And trying to get to the root of the the intersection between the history of the labor movement and the concerns of workers and the democracy movement and the military junta it is it is it is quite complex. And I want to really thank you for coming on and breaking it down so clearly and so effectively for me and for our audience so that we have a better understanding of the the underlying issues. Before we finish, though, I want to ask, Do you have any thoughts that you want to leave our audience with going forward
Stephen Campbell 1:15:00
Well, I would say that pay attention to the ongoing struggles of workers in Myanmar. Because just because the military has taken power, and has asserted a state of emergency and martial law does not mean that work organizing and workers struggles have stopped, because they continue. And they going forward are establishing, however difficult it is under present conditions. They're establishing forms of collective organizing in the workplace. And I think that we really need to recognize their capacity, their determination and the possibility of this despite these otherwise restrictive conditions, I think it's too easy to get caught up in the more high profile, opposition politics, and even some of the high profile armed opposition that we might forget or not recognize, especially for people who are outside of the country, that there is ongoing, organizing ongoing struggles by workers in the country.
Brad 1:16:05
Stephen Campbell only thank you for coming on. This has been this has been very enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Stephen Campbell 1:16:12
Well, thank you so much for having me. I also enjoyed talking with you. And it's really great to get the chance to elaborate on many of these ideas that are issues that are really important to me.
1:16:28
What am I gonna do, we are done and we got busier and busier.
1:16:36
Something like 15,000 troops and right police are estimated to have been on the streets. The government has admitted they killed 10 people, including a Japanese photographer,
1:16:46
when the military government realized the unfavorable situation deems forced to suppress the people.
Host 1:16:58
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1:20:05
Right