Corporatist Institutions and Militant Actions Building an Industrial Relations System in Myanmar

European Journal European Journal of of East Asian Studies 17 (2018) 324–352 East Asian Studies brill.com/ejea

Jinyoung Park Cornell University [email protected]

Abstract

Drawing on data from archives and fieldwork in Myanmar, a country in political change from a five-decade authoritarian regime to a quasi-civilian one, this study explores the reasons for a prevalence of corporatist aspects at the early stage of reforms. The early introduction of corporatism in Myanmar diverges from other Asian countries that experienced transitions accompanied by labour militancy, and only later embraced corporatism when political power shifted to elected pro-labour parties. This article argues, first, that corporatism prevails in the rhetoric of the labour movement and in Myanmar’s industrial relations institutions, while labour militancy has simultaneously increased; second, corporatism in Myanmar has few historical precedents but has recently been promoted primarily by the International Labour Organisation (ILO); and third, while corporatism has failed to bring about industrial peace, the rhetoric and institutions of corporatism may limit the political potential of Myanmar’s labour movement by restricting unions’ activities to economic concerns.

Keywords

Myanmar – industrial relations – ILO – corporatism – labour movement

1 Introduction

In practice, Industrial Relations (IR) never perfectly follows a standard model, nor does it develop in a political vacuum. Instead, power relations between state actors, capitalists and the working class shape IR’s development within particular political contexts. This has been the case in numerous Asian countries since the late twentieth century, where intensified labour militancy has

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15700615-01702007Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 325 followed political reforms as part of ‘transitions’ from authoritarian to relatively democratic regimes. There is now a large volume of literature devoted to such phenomena, as, for instance, in the case of South Korea and Taiwan starting in the 1980s. In these two countries, which will be examined in more detail below, political changes led to a relaxation of suppression of workers’ industrial actions, which enabled workers to organise and mobilise more widely. The resulting labour militancy pushed other actors, especially state authorities, to pursue corporatist forms of IR, combined with shifts in political power. In contrast to these precedents from elsewhere in Asia, the dynamics of recent political reforms in Myanmar suggest a more complex interplay between militant (confrontational) and corporatist (cooperative) labour strategies, and between the varied strategies of domestic and international actors. While the legalisation of labour unions in 2011, which allowed union formation for the first time since 1962, resulted in a rise in the number of registered unions and a wave of industrial actions, the author’s fieldwork suggests that the discourse among Myanmar’s unions remains surprisingly corporatist, rather than militant. Talk of ‘harmonious’ employment relations, institutionalised negotiation and tripartism have dominated trade union discourse. The Myanmar case also diverges from relevant Asian precedents in another way. To return to the cases of South Korea and Taiwan, elected, relatively pro-labour governments institutionalised corporatism in the form of tripartism in order to gain the support of militant labour movements. In Myanmar, by contrast, the military-backed civilian government, with the heavy involvement of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), introduced IR institutions with a corporatist theoretical framework prior to the emergence of a broad, militant labour movement. The introduction of corporatist IR institutions at such an early stage of reforms raises some important questions. Specifically, what forces have fos- tered the emergence of corporatism, which is now prevalent in Myanmar’s labour movement, so quickly since the legalisation of formal labour unions, and what are the implications of these developments for the future of the country’s labour movement? To address these questions, first the recent dynamics of Myanmar’s labour movement are presented, focusing on the increase of workers’ collective actions, which contrasts with the corporatist elements of institutionalised IR. Second, it is argued that the ILO has played the role of master planner for corporatist IR institutions and discourses in Myanmar.Third, the paper traces the ori- gins of the ILO’s influence in Myanmar, which emerged out of its prior involvement in the campaign against forced labour beginning in the early 2000s, but which is also connected to the more recent incorporation of Myanmar manufacturing industries into global supply chains. Combined, these factors have

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 326 park given the ILO increased leverage with the Myanmar government. Finally, it is argued that despite the ILO’s considerable success in promoting corporatism, creating a space for labour issues in policy-making, and designing Myanmar’s IR system, the organisation’s corporatist rhetoric may, by restricting ‘legitimate’ union activity to economic concerns, limit the potential for Myanmar’s labour movement to develop and exercise political power. This article draws on archival and fieldwork data, together with a review of existing literature, in order to examine the establishment and effects of Myan- mar’s formal IR system. From 2014 to 2017, nine months of fieldwork were conducted in Myanmar, spread over five visits. Fieldwork involved interviews with union leaders and rank-and-file unionists from different factions, international actors such as the ILO, international trade unions and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on labour issues in Myanmar, along with Myanmar government officials and representatives of Myanmar employers’ associations.

2 Union Militancy and Corporatism during Political Reform

Scholars have documented an intensification of workers’ militancy in countries undergoing democratisation in Asia, particularly in South Korea and Taiwan in the late 1980s. The dismantling of oppressive regimes allowed some political space for workers to raise their voices and demand labour rights. This led not only to short-term strikes and demonstrations, but also to the establishment of genuine labour unions and the replacement of existing ‘yellow’ (employer-controlled) unions with democratic, worker-led unions. Workers’ increased militancy in these two countries has been attributed to the historical exclusion of unions from formal institutions, which forced workers to pursue extra-institutional tactics, as in South Korea,1 and to the mobilisation of political opposition as a means to garner concessions from the government, as in Taiwan.2 In both South Korea and Taiwan, newly formed independent trade unions, federations and national centres organised workers and mobilised militant actions. Social corporatism, aimed at pacifying militant labour actions through social dialogue, on the one hand, and attracting newly formed militant factions to

1 Yoonkyung Lee, Militant or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Tai- wan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 2 Jou-juo Chu, ‘Labor militancy and Taiwan’s export-led industrialization. Labor and democratization in South Korea and Taiwan’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 33, 1 (2003), 18–36.

European Journal of East Asian StudiesDownloaded 17from (2018) Brill.com09/29/2021 324–352 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 327 institutionalised structure, on the other, was introduced in these countries only later and gradually with changes of political power. Distinct from state corporatism, which was promoted by authoritarian regimes to capture workers’ support by introducing paternalistic labour policies while maintaining dominance over both workers and employers, social corporatism is defined as the institutional involvement of labour unions and employers in labour and social policy-making.3 In South Korea and Taiwan, this approach started only when pro-labour parties gained political power. In South Korea, the first elected opposition party leader after military rule, Kim Dae Jung, initiated a tripartite committee to advise labour reforms in 1998, while the South Korean economy was in crisis. In Taiwan, the former opposition leader Chen Shui-bian was elected president in 2000 and proceeded to experiment with tripartite consultations. President Chen’s administration convened non-partisan advisory meetings, such as the 2001 National Development Advisory Conference, which included union and business leaders in making important policy decisions, including the minimum wage.4 However, the development of corporatist IR systems in each of these countries has proceeded on bumpy roads rather than clearly achieving industrial peace.This is partly due to the mistrust or imbalanced power relations between social partners—meaning the government, employers and labour unions. For instance, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the militant faction of the South Korean labour movement, refused to participate in the tripartite committee, regarding it as a government tactic to introduce unfavourable labour reforms for workers and co-opt the unions in the process.5 Thus, the tripartite committee gained only the partial participation of the conservative labour faction and failed to produce a meaningful outcome. The KCTU, mean- while, continued using strikes as its main strategy. It therefore took time for social partners, especially the militant labour faction, to begin to participate on the committee. However, they have never been a stable committee member, and have boycotted and withdrawn from the committee from time to time in order to pursue other strategies.

3 Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘Still the century of corporatism?’ in Trends Towards Corporatist Inter- mediation, eds Philippe C. Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch (London: Sage, 1979), 7–52. 4 Joseph S. Lee, ‘Political and workplace democracy in Taiwan’, in ‘Industrial Relations and Democracy in Asia. IRRA 56th Annual Proceeding Report’, unpublished (2015); Yasuhiro Kamimura, ‘Big deal and small deal: the new corporatism in South Korea and Taiwan’, presentation paper, fifth EASP conference at the National Taiwan University, 4 November 2008. 5 Jose A. Aleman, Labor Relations in New Democracies: East Asia, Latin America, and Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

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Similarly, Solidarity, the radical wing in the Taiwanese labour movement, relied on militant actions to assert the rights of marginalised workers for better working conditions and stable employment, and criticised the mainstream Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU) for pursuing institutional strategies that have delivered few benefits to non-unionised workers.6 Solidarity’s aggressive campaigns have sometimes resulted in more favourable outcomes for workers than the TCTU’s institutionalised negotiations, as, for instance, in amending the Employment Insurance Act in 2009. In addition, the political change from a pro-labour to a conservative party in 2008 has created challenges for the TCTU in exercising influence through institutional channels. This has encouraged the TCTU to take more assertive action since 2009, including the revival of annual protests and co-sponsoring of strikes together with Solidarity.7 In both countries, governments have played leading roles in implementing policies that institutionalise corporatism. While the ILO may have provided technical support, especially for South Korea, which became a member in 1991, there is minimal evidence that foreign actors like the ILO were significant factors in the process of introducing corporatist IR institutions in either country. The development of the labour movement and IR systems in reform-era Myanmar presents some similarities with other Asian countries. For example, in Myanmar, workers’ militant actions proliferated, as evidenced by the number of strikes increasing from less than ten cases annually before the transition to more than a hundred per year recently. Trade unions have also mush- roomed, and the number of registered unions has dramatically increased from zero in 2011 to more than 1,000 within a few years. Yet the processes in Myan- mar are characterised by three intriguing differences. First, social corporatism appeared in the early stage of reform led by the military regime, prior to a political power shift. Second, corporatist discourse has been actively adopted by trade unionists and labour activists regardless of the factions of the labour movement that they represent. Third, corporatism and its institutionalisation through the tripartite forum and social dialogue were initiated and promoted primarily by international agencies, especially the ILO, rather than the government. These differences are outlined in more detail in the following section.

6 Ming-sho Ho, ‘The dialectic of institutional and extra-institutional tactics: explaining the trajectory of Taiwan’s labor movement’, Development and Society 44, 2 (2015), 247–273. 7 Ho, ‘The dialectic of institutional and extra-institutional tactics’.

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3 Historical Background and IR of Myanmar

Beginning in 1962, Myanmar was controlled by two consecutive military regimes that pursued different policies, economic orientations and approaches to IR. The first military regime, led by General Ne Win until 1988, organised the country according to ‘the Burmese Way to Socialism’, which entailed a one- party system controlled by the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). The second regime, led by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC; renamed the State Peace and Development Council [SPDC] in 1997), seized power amid a bloody crackdown on a popular uprising in 1988 and adopted the economic policies that have since been called ‘the BurmeseWay to Capitalism’.8 These new policies recalibrated the centrally controlled economy towards a market-oriented economy.9 Accordingly, IR in these regimes had different fea- tures. While the first regime introduced several paternalistic labour policies to capture workers’ political support, the second regime tightened social control and did not allow any disputes, including labour-related disputes, out of fear of social unrest. During the first military regime, the BSPP institutionalised paternalist labour policies through two main institutions: the People’s Workers’ Council—later renamed the Workers’ Association—the government-controlled mass organisation for workers, and various grievance settlement systems, including joint management–labour committees at workplaces, and multi-tiered dispute settlement bodies at the national level, composed of two parties—workers and government.10 In addition, the regime established various informal channels for workers’ grievances such that senior officials held special meetings regu- larly to assist workers raise complaints directly with relevant authorities.11

8 John Badgley, ‘The Burmese way to capitalism’, Southeast Asian Affairs (1990), 229–239. 9 Mya Maung, ‘The Burmese approach to development: economic growth without democracy’, Journal of Asian Economics 7, 1 (1995), 97–129. 10 This favourable climate was well illustrated by the Nagar Daw Oo case, which nearly bankrupted one of the wealthiest individuals in Burma at that time through several cases that resulted in significant compensation owed to employees; Kyaw Soe Lwin, The Evolu- tion of Labour Politics in Post-colonial Myanmar, unpublished doctoral dissertation (City University of Hong Kong, 2013). 11 Kyaw Yin Hlaing, The Politics of State–Business Relations in Post-Colonial Burma, unpublished doctoral dissertation (Cornell University, 2001); Robert H. Taylor, The State in Myan- mar (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009); Tin Maung Maung Than, State Domi- nance in Myanmar: The Political Economy of Industrialization (Singapore: ISEAS Publish- ing, 2007).

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After 1988, the SLORC/SPDC abandoned the paternalist labour policies and chose instead to control society through harsh suppression. It dismantled worker-engagement institutions inherited from the previous regime or forced them into dysfunction. This resulted in increased difficulty for workers to seek redress by complicating complaint filing procedures and reducing the number of dispute arbitration bodies.12 The regime’s market-oriented and privatisa- tion policies worsened the situation of workers through the government’s pro- business approach. Few high-level officers assisted labour to resolve disputes as they had done before. In the late 1990s, for example, one local commander refused workers’ request for help in settling a dispute by saying that the state was no longer socialist and would therefore not provide such support.13 This shift left workers without either formal or informal grievance channels. The regime also severely punished any workers who engaged in labour disputes, industrial actions or any activity deemed a challenge to the government. The regime frequently imprisoned dissenters, including labour activists, for long sentences. The political reforms that began in 2011 have brought about significant changes, including changes to the country’s IR mechanisms. The military- backed civilian government initiated reforms of employment relations by introducing two major labour laws: the 2011 Labour Organisation Law (LOL) and the 2012 Settlement of Labour Dispute Law (SLDL). The LOL established employers’ right to lock out employees and workers’ right to organise, bargain collectively and strike. The minimum requirement to form a union (referred to by the LOL as a basic labour organisation) is thirty workers or 10 per cent of workers for its members in a factory, who must register with the local labour department. In turn, the SLDL regulates the dispute resolution system, including negotiations at the workplace, conciliation at the township level and three- tiered arbitration, comprised of a state/regional arbitration body, an arbitration council and a tribunal. The verdicts in these processes are legally bind- ing, and a dissatisfied party can initiate litigation by appealing to the Supreme Court after completing the process.14 Under the new labour laws, workers have organised workplace-level (or basic) unions quickly and formed several federations, although many are not

12 Kyaw Yin Hlaing, ‘The politics of state–society relations in Burma’, South East Asia Research 15, 2 (2007), 213–254; Lwin, ‘The evolution of labour politics in post-colonial Myanmar’. 13 Hlaing, State Dominance in Myanmar: The Political Economy of Industrialization, 245. 14 Than Win, ‘The new legal framework: labour organization law, industrial dispute settlement and collective bargaining’, presentation paper (2012); available at http://www.mol .gov.mm/mm/wpcontent/plugins/download‑monitor/download.php?id=53.

European Journal of East Asian StudiesDownloaded 17from (2018) Brill.com09/29/2021 324–352 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 331 legally registered. One of these actively operating federations is the Federation of Trade Unions Burma (FTUB, later renamed the Federation of Trade Union Myanmar, FTUM), formed by exiled unionists in 1991 in Thailand who returned to Myanmar in 2012. The FTUM evolved into the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) and obtained legal recognition in June 2015. The second federation, the Myanmar Trade Union Federation (MTUF, later renamed the Myanmar Industries, Crafts and Service Trade Union Federation, MICS), was formed in 2013 with approximately 200 locally born unions. The third federation is the Agriculture and Farmers’ Federation of Myanmar (AFFM),15 which split from the FTUB and organised separately with agricultural workers and farmers. Recently the AFFM have referred to themselves as the AFFM–IUF in order to indicate their membership in the international trade union federation, International Union of Food and Allied Workers (IUF), as well as to distinguish themselves from another farmers’ union with the same name affiliated to the CTUM.The fourth is the seafarers’ federation, Myanmar MaritimeWorkers’ Fed- eration (MMWF).16 These four federations operate in two main factions, with the FTUM/CTUM on one side and the MICS/AFFM/MMWF as a coalition on the other. Simultaneously, various labour advocacy NGOs formed around 2012 have supported labour unions and collaborated primarily with the coalition of the MICS/AFFM/MMWF. As of November 2017, 2,506 labour organisations were registered, including 2,341 firm-level unions, eight federations and one confederation, along with three seafarers’ federations previously formed under the military regime.17 However, it is difficult to accurately determine union density due to the lack of reliable data.18 The LOL also regulates the formation of employers’ associations. Even though employers have responded much less enthusiastically to the idea of forming associations, there are currently twenty-nine registered employers’

15 The AFFM–IUF secured legal status as a federation of agricultural workers and farmers in May 2015. 16 Seafarers’ federations obtained legal status earlier than other federations due to a special law that allowed them to form a federation without membership of workplace-level unions. There are several seafarers’ federations, including one under the CTUM and one that is aligned with the government. Among these, the MMWF is most active within the labour movement. 17 Myanmar Ministry of Labour, 2017. 18 One report indicates a union density of 0.6 per cent, based on an estimated 200,000 union members (a figure provided by some Myanmar labour federations and confederations). However, this figure seems high, especially considering that more than half of registered unions are farmers’ associations rather than associations of workers in employee– employer relations.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 332 park associations at different levels, including one peak organisation, the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI). The garment industry is regarded as a key sector for Myanmar’s economic growth. Owing to its cheap labour, the country is often called ‘Asia’s final production frontier’. The argument is that Myanmar’s low-cost labour force makes the country especially attractive to the labour-intensive garment industry and to the multinational corporations that are relocating from China and other countries where labour costs have been increasing.19 Currently, one Chinese business association claims to operate around 200 garment factories in Myan- mar, while members of the Korean employers’ association operate around a hundred enterprises in the country. However, neither of these associations has official relations with the UMFCCI.They are therefore not represented in Myan- mar’s formal tripartite structure.20

4 Militant Actions of Workers in Myanmar

The SLORC/SPDC regime regarded all labour organising as a threat to political stability. Union activity was banned and industrial actions were repressed, and the military government severely punished dissenters with long-term impris- onment. In one well-known case, a labour activist and two lawyers received death sentences under accusation of high treason for having contacted the ILO and provided information deemed to have ‘defamed’ the state.21 The junta thus did not tolerate workers’ actions and pressured both labour and employers to quickly settle the small number of disputes that approached an impasse or resulted in strikes.22 According to one labour activist,

They [government authorities] blocked the area of the factory on strike and threatened to close down the factory if the strike continued longer

19 HKTDC Research, ‘Myanmar rising: opportunities in Asia’s final production frontier’ (Hong Kong: HKTDC, 2016); available at http://economists‑pick‑research.hktdc.com/business ‑news/article/Research‑Articles/Myanmar‑Rising‑Opportunities‑in‑Asia‑s‑Final ‑Production‑Frontier/rp/en/1/1X000000/1X0A6C1Z.htm. 20 Interview, employers’ association, July 2017. 21 Richard Horsey, Ending Forced Labour in Myanmar: Engaging a Pariah Regime (New York: Routledge, 2011). 22 Nicholas Henry, ‘Everyday agents of change: trade unions in Myanmar’, in The Everyday Political Economy of Southeast Asia, eds Juanita Elias and Lena Rethel (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 2016), 72–92.

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than three days. So sometimes, workers could get favourable outcomes such as wage increases.23

However, strikes were seldom publicised due to strict state control of the media, and workers leading strikes or other actions were invariably arrested, fired and blacklisted afterwards. According to a labour activist supporting workers’ struggles during this period, one of their strategies was to provide fake identification for those who had led the strikes (and were thus likely to get blacklisted) so that these individuals would be able to get new jobs elsewhere after the strike.24 The high risks of industrial actions intimidated many workers and likely con- tributed to the low number of strikes and their containment within workplaces during this period. According to ILO data, there was an average of eleven strikes annually from 1999 to 2008 with the highest number being twenty-eight cases in 2003, when one-third of Myanmar’s garment factories closed down due to economic sanctions imposed by the United States. Between 2004 and 2008, there were fewer than ten strikes each year. Table 1 presents the number of strikes during this period. Since 2009, strikes have become more visible, reported primarily by the media in exile. For instance, Mizzima, a news organisation established outside Myanmar, reported in 2009 that ‘minor protests and demonstrations are not uncommon in factories and companies in Rangoon’s industrial zones, [although] workers’ causes and demands rarely come to be known, as the authorities tightly control the flow of information’. Mizzima also reported a strike of 1,000 workers in a garment factory in Yangon who successfully demanded a wage increase in December 2009.25 The frequency of strikes has increased since 2010 and workers have engaged in solidarity strikes with workers of multiple factories. For instance, in 2010, 4,000 workers participated in a sit-in at two garment factories owned by a company called SGI, located in an industrial zone outside of Yangon, demanding better wages. The action was partly motivated by a recent wage increase for government officers.26

23 Interview, labour activist, October 2015. 24 Interview, labour activist, October 2015. 25 ‘Workers in Rangoon call off demonstration’, Mizzima, 18 December 2009; available at http://archive‑1.mizzima.com/news/myanmar/3174‑workers‑in‑rangoon‑call‑off ‑demonstration. 26 Ba Kaung, ‘4,000 workers go on strike in Rangoon’, The Irrawaddy, 6 March 2010; available at http://www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=17972 (accessed 16 March 2017). A sep- arate study is needed to analyse the reasons for the sudden increase in strikes during the period. One possible explanation is that the political environment at that time, in which

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 334 park table 1 The number of strikes before the reform

Years No. of strikes Years No. of strikes

1999 13 2004 9 2000 10 2005 4 2001 18 2006 6 2002 11 2007 7 2003 28 2008 6

Source: the ILO database

Despite tight censorship of local media, information on strikes, demonstrations and their success spread among workers. As one trade union activist recalled, ‘There were lots of rumours about strikers and their success in 2009 and 2010 that encouraged us to do something.’27 Workers were willing to take action to demand better wages at this time due to spikes in fuel prices and increased costs of living—the same dynamic that catalysed the popular uprising in Myanmar in 2007. Workers organised wildcat strikes and/or collective negotiations in diverse, even simple, forms such as leaving notes with the time and venue of the action on restroom walls in their factories, circulating memos among assembly lines or communicating to workers on pay day when they gathered in one place with the proof of their low wage. Some labour activists recalled that they could stimulate strikes by boarding commuter buses and agitating workers with speeches about workers’ exploitative situations. Work- ers in factories without strikes also tried to find ways to claim their rights. For instance, workers in a rice-sack bag-making factory organised a collective visit to the managers’ office to complain about unfair overtime requirements, which they succeeded in stopping.28 The most common demands were wage increases, including overtime payments, ending harassment by management, including verbal, physical or sexual abuse, and ending unsafe working conditions.29

the military government had conducted a national referendum for a new constitution in 2008 and announced plans to transfer power to a civilian government, may have signalled to workers that the government would quash labour activism as it had in the past. 27 Interview, unionist, November 2015. 28 Interview, several unionists, October and November 2015; labour activist, December 2015; unionist, June 2017. 29 Interview, employer, October 2015; unionist, November 2015.

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Scholars have identified this period as ‘a wave of strikes’,30 even though few have provided statistical information due to the lack of reliable data on labour issues in Myanmar. However, the Myanmar media frequently reported the tense climate in workplaces. For example, one outlet reported that in May 2012 there were ‘at least 18 strikes in Yangon’.31 An observer on the ground reported that the number of strikes decreased after the 2012 peak.32 Even though the number of strikes may have decreased, the intensity of some of these actions increased, as some strikes continued for longer periods and became particularly tense. For instance, a Myanmar NGO, Progressive Voice,33 characterised 2015 as ‘a second wave of strikes’ with some high-profile cases including a five- factory strike involving thousands of workers in January and February 2015. In early 2017, workers struck at a Chinese-owned factory producing for the Swedish apparel brand H&M and remained on strike for more than a month over the termination of a union leader, better working conditions and benefits. Frustrated workers at this factory beat a manager and destroyed the machines and facilities.34 In addition, workers have made their voices publicly heard outside of their factories by holding rallies. With the lifting of tight media control, labour leaders quickly adopted demonstrations as a tactic to attract public attention. According to one news article, labour protests peaked in 2012 with 241 cases, declined to 136 cases in 2013, and to seventy by July 2014.35 In June 2013, over 12,000 workers from thirty factories in the Yangon industrial zones marched out, demanding wage increases and better working conditions. Workers also targeted specific authorities with collective actions. For instance, in 2014 hun-

30 Dennis Arnold and Stephen Campbell, ‘Labour regime transformation in Myanmar: constitutive processes of contestation’, DevelopmentandChange 48, 4 (2017), 801–824; Michael Gillan and Htwe Thein, ‘Employment relations, the state and transitions in governance in Myanmar’, Journal of Industrial Relations (2016), 1–16; Henry, ‘Everyday agents of change: trade unions in Myanmar’. 31 Noe Noe Aung and Myat May Zin, ‘Eighteen strikes Yangon in May: activist’, Myanmar Times, 28 May 2012; available at http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national‑news/ yangon/658‑eighteen‑strikes‑yangon‑in‑may‑activist.html. 32 Interview, labour activist, November 2015. 33 Progressive Voice, ‘Rising the bottom: a report on the garment industry in Myanmar’, unpublished report (2015). 34 Shwe Yee Saw Myint and Yimou Lee, ‘H&M factory in Myanmar damaged in violent labor dispute’, Reuters, 7 March 2017; available at http://www.reuters.com/article/us‑myanmar ‑factory‑idUSKBN16E1TC. 35 Dene-hern Chen, ‘Burma’s industrial relations at a crossroads’,Democratic Voice of Burma (2014). Available at http://www.dvb.no/news/burmas‑industrial‑relations‑at‑a‑crossroads ‑burma‑myanmar/43596.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 336 park dreds of workers from Master Sports, a shoe factory owned by a South Korean, marched to the Korean Embassy to demand remediation after their employer fled to South Korea without settling the workers’ unpaid wages and severance compensation.36 In 2015, hundreds of workers struck atTaiYi, a Chinese-owned shoe factory, conducted a sit-in strike and travelled to Naypyidaw, the capital city, to pressure the Labour Ministry to intervene and force the employer to negotiate with their union leaders.37 In recent years, workers’ militant actions have become a prominent part of labour affairs in Myanmar. Even before the 2011 reforms, workers had increased strikes and public protests—actions that had previously been severely sup- pressed by the military regime. Scholars documented a similar phenomenon in other Asian countries, where increased worker militancy has erupted during transitions from authoritarian to democratic governments. However, the Myanmar case suggests a divergence due to the prevailing corporatist rhetoric among labour leaders, which contrasts with workers’ militant actions. This divergence is explored in detail below, after first examining the rapid growth of trade unions in Myanmar.

5 Rapid Union Growth

In Myanmar, militant industrial actions are closely related to union growth. In many cases, after wildcat strikes, regardless of their success, activists and unionists who helped in negotiations have encouraged the workers to form unions. Moreover, workers in a given factory often engage in repeated strikes, as employers respond to workers’ initial strikes by introducing strict workplace rules, thereby heightening work intensiveness, along with dismissals, both of which motivate workers to strike again.38 One such case involved a union of 400 workers at a detergent factory in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. As a worker employed at this factory explained,

We had eleven, oh no, seven strikes in the first year. [It was] because the employer did not respect his promise [for a wage increase] and dismissed the union leaders.39

36 Interview, labour activist, November 2015. 37 Interview, unionist, December 2015. 38 Interviews, unionists, October and November 2015. 39 Interview, unionist, November 2015.

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In fact, since the start of Myanmar’s transition to a quasi-civilian regime, union organising has increased significantly. The labour laws enacted in 2012, particularly the LOL, have stimulated industrial actions and union formation, primarily at the workplace level. Labour unions in Myanmar grew from zero government-recognised unions before 2011 to 670 registered unions with 200,000 members by the middle of 2013.40 The number of registered unions then increased to 1,240 by November 2014 and to 1,660 by May 2015.41 Even though an estimated two-thirds of registered unions represent farmers (mostly peasants),42 the number of unions including those in the manufacturing sec- tors continues to grow at an impressive rate.43 Union federations came onto the scene later. Rather quickly, these federations formed two factions, the FTUM/CTUM returning from exile on one side and a coalition of other locally born federations, including the MTUF (renamed as the MICS), the AFFM–IUF and the MMWF, and labour NGOs on the other. The two factions have comparable numbers of local union affiliations. However, the FTUM/ CTUM has more resources, financial and technical, obtained via the support of international organisations, including international trade unions, reflecting the relationships it developed through its campaigns against military rule. The coalition of other federations, particularly the MTUF/MICS, claims it has a stronger grassroots base and is building the labour movement from the bottom up.44 The coalition has more industry-based union members due to the

40 Ross Wilson, ‘The new union movement in Myanmar’, Global Labor Column (2013); available at http://column.global‑labour‑university.org/2013/09/the‑new‑union‑movement‑in ‑myanmar.html. 41 Interview, ILO staff, October 2015. Several factors are responsible for this rapid union growth. First, workers actively mobilised through wildcat strikes as detailed in the previous section. Second, the new laws created an enabling legal environment for unions. Third, international agencies, especially the ILO, significantly supported unions, a factor explored in the following section. The fourth factor was the sheer number of activists and unionists who supported workers’ actions and helped workers form unions.These activists and unionists have diverse backgrounds and include former underground activists, ex- political prisoners, as well as activists and unionists returning from exile. 42 Farmers’ unions in Myanmar have primarily organised peasants rather than agricultural workers. 43 A lack of reliable statistics makes it difficult to estimate union density. In addition, the fact that two-thirds or half of registered unions are reportedly peasants’ unions may lessen the initial surprise about the seemingly fast growth of unions. According to current ILO data, around 15 per cent of the 22 million-person labour force work in the industrial sector, while 54 per cent are engaged in agriculture or related work, and 17 per cent work in the service sector (ILO, ‘All-employment coordination meeting agenda’,presentation paper, 8 January 2016). 44 Interview, unionists, June 2014, October 2015.

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MICS membership. However, the coalition has less support from international unions and other international actors, partly due to a language barrier—few of its members are able to communicate in English.45 In addition, there are some independent unions at the enterprise level. While these unions have no formal affiliation, some of them have informal relations with the MTUF/MICS. Given this spilt in the Myanmar labour movement, it is understandable that a strong rivalry46 between the FTUM/CTUM and the coalition of other federations has developed that may create a tension among the labour movement and lead to hindering a unity of labour groups.

6 Corporatist Discourse and Its Institutionalisation

Despite their different legacies, most union federations and NGOs in Myan- mar have uniformly adopted corporatist discourse. Even though few use the term ‘corporatism’, they have demonstrated their commitment to it in practice. Moreover, many unionists and labour activists in Myanmar have begun to use the term ‘tripartism’. This term is now popularly used by union officials in Myanmar to refer not only to a platform for social dialogue at the policy level, but also to a standard (and somewhat idealised) procedure to settle labour disputes and strikes through the involvement of government, employers and workers. In reality, tripartism has been frequently invoked by unionists and labour activists as a way to push officials in local labour departments to intervene in workplace negotiations. When negotiations have reached an impasse

45 Interview, a staff member of the international agency, December 2015. 46 There may be several explanations for this. First, Lee Jones attributes it as the personal conflicts between activists from exile; Lee Jones, ‘The political economy of Myanmar’s transition’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 44, 1 (2016), 144–170. Second, some scholars (e.g. Arnold and Campbell, ‘Labour regime transformation in Myanmar’; Campbell, ‘On labour organisations in Myanmar’) have pointed to organisational conflicts around internal democracy and transparency, of which FTUM leaders have been accused.Third, several observers have pointed out that the FTUM in Thailand was a political organisation using the name of union for political ends without a serious membership base. For these reasons, it may be difficult for the FTUM to gain recognition as a legitimate labour union among local unions (interview, staff in international organisation, June 2014; unionist, October 2015; unionist, November 2015). In any case, it is obvious the FTUM has not been warmly welcomed within Myanmar by all local labour groups. This was shown when the FTUM tried to claim a role as a leading federation, to which local unions responded nega- tively, saying that the FTUM had ‘no position in Myanmar’ (Campbell, ‘On labour organisation in Myanmar’) and charging the FTUM with trying to buy local unions off with financial rewards (interviews, several unionists, June 2014; October 2015).

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(frequently due to the employer’s refusal to sit at the negotiation table), the union complains to the local labour department and requests their involvement in negotiations under the cause of ‘tripartism’. At the same time, corporatism has gained currency at a policy level and has become the frame used to discuss IR institutions. For instance, the government has praised tripartism as a measure to resolve disagreement between employers and workers through government facilitation. When the government listed its achievements in the Presidential Message for May Day in 2015, the tripartite structure to set up a minimum wage was explained at length. The government also held the first tripartite consultation in 2012, and it has since evolved into the tripartite forum, meeting quarterly. The forum has become a venue for the three parties to discuss and consult on labour-related policies, including the amendment of labour laws.47 The minimum wage committee also operates with its own tripartite structure to determine the minimum wage rate. Addi- tional nascent tripartite committees are tasked with covering issues such as labour law reform and child labour and supporting the ILO’s decent work programme.48 Labour unionists have welcomed the tripartite forum and social dialogue convened by the central government. Even though they were, to some extent, sceptical of the forum’s actual effectiveness, mostly due to the close ties between employers and the government, the unions have remained enthusi- astic and willing to use the forum as a channel to influence labour policies and legislation.49 Significantly, their scepticism does not mean that these unions do not buy into the concept of social dialogue. For instance, the MTUF/MICS made an agreement with the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA) to build ‘a healthy relationship and strong cooperation … between employers and employees’ for economic growth.50 Even though the agreement may not get fully implemented, given the lack of concrete action plans, it nonetheless indicates that the union has embraced the notion of corporatism based on ‘strong cooperation between employers and employees’.The CTUM, which was formed in Thailand and has significant resources and support from interna-

47 Aye Min Soe, ‘Workers’ right boost—tripartite talks result in agreement on amending labour laws’, The Global New Light of Myanmar, 28 September 2015; available at http://www.globalnewlightofmyanmar.com/workers‑rights‑boost‑tripartite‑talks‑result ‑in‑agreement‑on‑amending‑labour‑laws/. 48 ILO, ‘All-employment coordination meeting agenda’. 49 Interview, several unionists, October 2015. 50 MGMA and MTUF, joint statement (10 November 2014); available at http://www.myanmargarments.org/wp‑content/uploads/2014/12/Joint‑Statement‑of ‑MGMA‑MTUF‑English‑Version‑24.11.2014.pdf.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 340 park tional organisations, showed little difference. Like the MTUF/MICS, the CTUM has adopted the same logic of corporatism, focusing on tripartism and negotiation, as opposed to workers’ militant actions. This corporatist logic influenced the Myanmar labour movement in several ways, which can be seen in federations’ emphasis on legality and their commitment to negotiations, even at the cost of ignoring workers’ demands, and their collaborative vision for the future of the labour movement.

7 The ILO’s Role and Influence

The establishment of corporatist institutions and the prevalence of corporatist logics since the beginning of reforms in Myanmar can be largely attributed to the ILO. Indeed, a growing body of literature on Myanmar’s labour relations has emphasised the prominent role of the ILO in the reform process and in the building of an industrial relations system. Several scholars have gone so far as to argue that it was this external influence that brought about the country’s labour reforms.51 Other scholars have incorporated into their analysis the complemen- tary role of domestic labour actors in shaping Myanmar’s new labour regula- tions.52 However, all observers agree that the ILO was influential in nurturing Myanmar’s nascent labour movement and in fostering the social dialogue and tripartism that characterise Myanmar’s new industrial relations system.53 This influential role of the ILO cannot be fully explained without understanding its historical legacy in Myanmar. The ILO came onto the scenes of labour affairs in Myanmar in the early 2000s, when the organisation began its project to eliminate the practice of forced labour by the Myanmar military. At the time, the military government had been accused of systematically using

51 Gillan andThein, ‘Employment relations, the state and transitions in governance in Myan- mar’; Nicholas Henry, ‘Trade union internationalism and political change in Myanmar’, Global Change, Peace & Security 27, 1 (2015), 69–84; Henry, ‘Everyday agents of change: trade unions in Myanmar’. 52 Arnold and Campbell, ‘Labour regime transformation in Myanmar: constitutive processes of contestation’. 53 One such rare study is by Henry, who has traced international efforts by the ILO and international labour unions since the era of direct military rule in support of Myanmar labour activists and unionists, including those in exile, by providing training, resources and net- works for international campaigns, and by providing capacity building programmes and legitimacy for social dialogue (Henry, ‘Trade union internationalism and political change in Myanmar’). However, Henry says little about the implications of the ILO’s involvement on Myanmar’s labour movement.

European Journal of East Asian StudiesDownloaded 17from (2018) Brill.com09/29/2021 324–352 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 341 civilians as forced labour to build infrastructure and military camps, and to serve as porters for the military. Forced labourers, particularly forced porters, frequently starved and were subjected to beatings, rape, murder and aban- donment in the jungle if they fell ill.54 An international campaign initiated by activists fleeing Myanmar after 1988 and supported by the international community, including labour unions and human rights groups, resulted in various sanctions imposed against the Myanmar government. Among these measures, trade sanctions imposed by the US in 2003 were detrimental to the Myanmar garment industry, leading to the contraction of the industry by an estimated 60 per cent, with 85,000 jobs lost, according to the Myanmar government.55 Owing to international pressure, the ILO convinced the military government to allow it to set up a liaison office, even though the regime had until then resisted any international intervention. More importantly, the ILO’s Yangon office, in contrast to ILO offices in other countries, negotiated to install a unique mechanism to receive complaints directly from victims of forced labour, to investigate these cases, and to assist victims in seeking remedies under the legal procedures as necessary.56 During that project, the ILO achieved some notable success in stopping officials’ use of civilians as forced labour, rescuing child soldiers, winning remedies for victims of forced labour, having offend- ers punished, and protecting plaintiffs from retaliation by the authorities. As a result of these achievements, the ILO could justifiably claim that it had con- tributed to reducing forced labour in Myanmar—something Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic leader of Myanmar’s opposition movement, recognised as an important achievement.57 Against this backdrop, the ILO continues its work in the current reform process with two assets: a popular image of the ILO as a ‘hero’ in fighting against the military government on the side of the people;58 and the leverage of economic sanctions by the international community. The former has helped the ILO in working with unions and labour groups, while the latter has been effective in putting pressure on the government. These resources have allowed the

54 Human Rights Documentation Unit, ‘Burma Human Rights Year Book 2005’, unpublished report (Mae Sot: Human Rights Documentation Unit of National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, 2006); available at http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs5/HRDU ‑archive/Burma%20Human%20Righ/former/YB2005.pdf. 55 Yan Gyi Aung, ‘Sanctions’, The New Light of Myanmar, 15 February 2011; available at http:// www.myanmar‑embassy‑tokyo.net/news/2011‑02‑15‑article.pdf. 56 Richard Horsey, Ending Forced Labour in Myanmar: Engaging a Pariah Regime (New York: Routledge, 2011). 57 Horsey, Ending Forced Labour in Myanmar. 58 Interviews with unionists and ILO staff, various times.

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ILO to broaden the scope of its work beyond merely providing technical support, which has been the standard remit of ILO offices elsewhere. In fact, the ILO has worked hard in Myanmar to establish a corporatist industrial relations system based on ‘tripartism and social dialogue’, which is the ILO’s preferred terminology for corporatism. However, this has not been an easy task; the organisation has had to work from scratch, initiating and supporting the tripartite committee, promoting a favourable environment for social dialogue, and enforcing good faith bargaining between the parties. In this regard, one of the first steps the ILO took was to create the ‘players’ who would take part in the tripartite committee. When the reform process began in 2011, there were no registered unions or employers’ associations to properly represent either labour or business. For unions there were two problems: lack of personnel with experience of institutionalised labour relations, and strict legal requirements to form peak organisations. Trade unions had been effectively prohibited since 1964, and only a few people inside Myanmar had experience organising workers and forming unions and federations. In addition, the LOL stipulated burdensome requirements for the formation of legal labour federations and confederations.59 The employers’ organisation, the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), was established by the SLORC regime in 198960 to be the party’s arm in the business community61 and to function as a commercial enterprise association rather than a representative body of employers.62 The ILO, while providing training and support for capacity building for both unions and employers, has made every effort to bring back from exile unionists who were on the government’s blacklist for campaigning against the military regime. One of these individuals was Maung Maung, leader of the FTUB (and now president of the CTUM), whom ILO staff have referred to as ‘the only per-

59 In order to form a union federation, the Myanmar Labour Organisation Law stipulates that, as a prerequisite, a candidate federation must include 10 per cent of all affiliated member organisations among existing labour organisations at all the three lower tiers (workplace, township and state/region levels), which creates difficulties for establishing a federation. Currently the Seamen’s Federation is the only federation without lower-level organisation, but this is a legal exception. Because of this quantitative requirement, some union leaders have formed several unions in one factory under the same leadership but with different members—a strategy that risks creating internal conflicts among the sister unions (interview, union organiser, November 2015). 60 Tin Maung Maung Than, State Dominance in Myanmar, 389–390. 61 Kway Yin Hlaing, ‘The politics of state–society relations in Burma’, South East Asia Research, 15, 2 (2007), 213–254. 62 Interview, ILO staff, October 2015.

European Journal of East Asian StudiesDownloaded 17from (2018) Brill.com09/29/2021 324–352 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 343 son who understands IR in Myanmar’.63 Maung Maung returned from Thailand in September 2012 and quickly announced the formation of the FTUM (now the CTUM). Simultaneously, the ILO has worked to convince these players of the benefits of a tripartite structure. All three sides have expressed reluctance about participating in tripartite mechanisms. First, the government has been reluctant to participate, as it is worried it may lose control to civil society. In response, the ILO has continually stressed the importance of tripartite consultations, while assuring the government that the state would retain final decision-making power, with the employers’ and workers’ associations being given only consul- tative status.64 Second, employers’ associations have shown lukewarm interest in social dialogue, which they view as having little value. The ILO has therefore urged the UMFCCI to take a proactive role in the tripartite process, and has reached out to local business communities to explain tripartism and its benefits.65 Third, even though Myanmar trade unions were initially excited about the idea of a tripartite forum and were eager to participate, the ILO has had to deal with complicated rivalries among these unions, and especially between unions formed locally and unions formed in exile, which ‘refused even to sit in the same room’ when the ILO invited both sides for consultation on labour affairs.66 Nonetheless, the ILO has managed to convince both groups to participate, using the relations and credibility it had previously developed from the forced labour project. As a result of the ILO’s efforts, the first tripartite consultation was held in 2012 and institutionalised as the National Tripartite Forum (NTF) in 2014, followed by subsequent tripartite committees. The ILO has provided technical support and facilitated the forum. For instance, one of the current issues facing the NTF is the amendment of Myanmar’s labour laws. The ILO’s Yangon office has facilitated the overall labour law consultation procedures, while the employers’ associations have received support from experts in the ILO’s employers’ bureau and trade unions have gained advice from international trade unions.67 In order to create a favourable environment for social dialogue and harmonious industrial relations, the ILO has made training an important part of its

63 Interview, ILO staff, June 2014. 64 Interviews, ILO staffs, June 2014, October 2015. 65 ILO, ‘Executive summary report on Myanmar labour force, child labour and school to work transition survey 2015’ (2016); available at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/‑‑ ‑asia/‑‑‑ro‑bangkok/‑‑‑ilo‑yangon/documents/publication/wcms_516117.pdf. 66 Interview, ILO staff, June 2014. 67 Interview, ILO staff; a staff in an international organisation; unionist, July and August 2017.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 344 park work. One of the major elements in this training has been relations between employers and employees and the bolstering of social dialogue. After sep- arate training sessions, both employers and workers joined a joint training programme to promote mutual understanding and to enhance understand- ings on the concept of social dialogue.68 A union trainer recalled that one of the most useful and impressive sessions involved a mock collective bargaining exercise with reversed roles between workers and employers.69 Within two years (September 2012–September 2014), the ILO conducted 145 training workshops for 5,449 union members, employers and other stakeholders, some of which were carried out by local facilitators trained by the ILO.70 The training sessions can be said to have been at least partly successful in convincing participants of the value of tripartism. For instance, one labour activist stated, with regard to his experience at the training, ‘Before, I thought employers and workers were enemies … but partly owing to the ILO workshop, I can understand them [employers] better.’71 The presence of the ILO in the tripartite forum has played an important balancing role by compen- sating for labour’s relatively weak position, given the limited organisational basis of trade unions in Myanmar. For many years, the ILO in Myanmar was the embodiment of international pressure to ensure compliance with international labour standards. To gain incorporation into global supply chains and to be kept free from international sanctions, the Myanmar government ‘was concerned to keep the ILO happy’.72 Therefore, given that the ILO regards corporatism as a means of improving labour conditions according to international standards, unions that pursue corporatism gain support from the ILO. In sum, the ILO’s Yangon office has worked to build corporatist IR institutions and to spread corporatist discourse within the labour movement in various ways: by supporting all parties participating in the tripartite forum, by facilitating the forum and by partially rebalancing power relations between

68 Interview, ILO staff, June 2014. 69 Interview, unionist, November 2015. 70 ILO Liaison Office, 2014; interview, unionists, October and November 2015. 71 Interview, labour activist, June 2014. 72 Interview, ILO staff, June 2014. The government’s efforts have been rewarded as expected. The ILO made the first move by lifting sanctions in June 2012. This was followed by the EU in 2013, which had imposed sanctions in 1997 in response to the forced labour complaint. While the US then withdrew its sanctions only partially, this move had the biggest impact on Myanmar, as the US imposition of sanctions in 2003 had had the most detrimental impact on the country’s garment sector.

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8 Impacts and Implications of ‘Implanted Corporatism’

It has been argued that the ILO implanted corporatism in Myanmar. While the ILO’s efforts to institutionalise corporatism have helped unions raise their voice on the subject of labour policy reform, the adoption of institutionalised corporatism has not brought about industrial peace. Instead, workers have continued to pursue extra-legal workplace struggles that repudiate the ILO’s hopes for industrial peace. Open organising and collective action by workers is a new phenomenon that has not been achieved in Myanmar since the initial period after independence in 1948. Now, strikes are frequently the first measures that workers pursue, not a last resort to force an intransigent employer to negotiate in good faith. In Myanmar, as elsewhere, employers often hold very hierarchical views about how workplaces should operate, leading to their reluctance to negotiate in good faith. As one worker said, ‘Employers do not think that we are equal enough to be able to negotiate with them.’73 At the same time, workers’ tendency to strike first is related to workers’ frustrations over the non-enforcement of labour laws. Workers repeatedly see that employers disregard the decisions of the arbitration council when it rules in favour of workers. Strikes, by contrast, are clearly more effective in bringing about immediate and more favourable outcomes, thus weakening the motivation to follow legal procedures.74 Officials in union federations, faced with this discrepancy between corporatist ideals and militant workers’ actions, have responded by trying to control strikes. For example, union federations have provided training sessions for workers in which they emphasise the legal procedures for strikes as outlined in the LOL and the Settlement of Labour Disputes Law. These legal procedures stipulate the particular stage in a dispute settlement process at which strikes are legally permitted, with the requirement that federations must approve all strikes in advance. However, this approach has been rarely successful in stopping ‘illegal’ strikes. Labour activists and union officials have acknowledged

73 Interview, unionist, November 2015. 74 Interview, unionist, November 2015.

European Journal of East Asian Studies 17 (2018)Downloaded 324–352 from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:32:06AM via free access 346 park that almost all strikes in recent years have been technically illegal under current laws.75 Therefore, as a union staff in one federation said,

We always say to workers, ‘Tell us before you go on strike.’ But frequently we get phone calls in the morning or at night [saying], ‘Sister, we started a strike, please come to help us.’76

The influence of corporatist ideology is evident at several levels. First, corporatism has influenced activists’ and trade unionists’ perceptions of employer– employee relations. They often view ideal employer–employee relations as something that can be (and should be) cooperative and harmonious. According to one prominent labour activist and former political prisoner, labour activists are ‘just a group that will negotiate to solve the problems between the owners and workers, and problems between workers and owners are like fights between family members’.77 Another long-time labour activist, who had previously been sentenced to life in prison for his activities under the military government, said, ‘My aim is to build a harmonious employment relationship.’78 After being released from prison in 2012, this individual set up a labour NGO and has become an influential figure in the trade union movement. More consequentially, this implanted corporatism, while establishing an IR model based on negotiation and cooperation, frames ‘uncontrollable workers’ militant action’ as an undesirable and unacceptable measure. One trade union federation leader’s remark reflects this position clearly: ‘Wildcat strikes and demonstrations often come from workers who are not part of unions, as they do not have the awareness to resolve issues in a productive manner.’79 A strike in January 2015 illustrates this divergence between workers and unions on how to ‘productively’ resolve workplace disputes. Thousands of workers from five garment factories in Shwepyitha industrial zone, owned by Chinese and Korean business persons, staged a five-week strike. Workers in one of the garment factories initiated the strike due to frustration over the employer’s breach of a collective bargaining agreement made in 2013. These workers were subsequently joined by workers from four other factories.80 The

75 Interviews, labour activists and unionists, October and November 2015. 76 Interview, unionist, September 2015. 77 Noe Noe Aung, ‘Activists defend role in strikes’, Myanmar Times 32, 633 (2012); available at http://www.mmtimes.com/2012/news/633/news63321.html. 78 Interview, labour activist, June 2014. 79 See note 26 above. 80 Interviews, worker, November 2015; unionist, November 2015.

European Journal of East Asian StudiesDownloaded 17from (2018) Brill.com09/29/2021 324–352 04:32:06AM via free access corporatist institutions and militant actions 347 striking workers demanded wage increases and better working conditions. The unions in these factories were independent, but unionists from the MTUF and labour activists from different NGOs tried to intervene to settle the dispute. However, the negotiations were not transparent and the workers were left largely uninformed. Consequently, the workers viewed the resulting agreement as unsatisfactory. In any case, the agreement was not properly implemented. Although workers from two of the striking factories returned to work, the oth- ers continued their struggle, and a hundred of the striking workers marched through downtown Yangon to make their demands heard. At this point, the police and deputised plain-clothed vigilantes violently dispersed the march- ing workers. The authorities brought legal charges against several of the union leaders under the Peaceful Assembly Law.81 The strike summarised above was one of the most militant in Myanmar in recent years. Many outside trade unionists and activists were critical of the workers’ militancy. The union federations and labour NGOs seemed unable to recognise workers’ capacities for self-organisation, claiming instead that there must have been some group that had instigated these ‘violent actions’ by the workers. Unionists blamed activists and activists blamed ‘communists’ as being responsible for the strike.82 Neither group, however, was able to provide any evidence.The narrative of these outside trade unionists and labour NGOs parroted the government’s position that the workers’ struggle had been instigated by outsiders. The government, moreover, warned that ‘the Ministry of Labour will cooperate with local authorities to take action … against people who sow insta- bility by encouraging demonstrations’.83 This accusation was publicly accepted among labour groups,84 resulting in unionists and activists stopping their support for the strike, making the striking workers even more vulnerable, enabling the government to disperse the strikes violently and increasing workers’ dis- trust of outside trade unionists and labour NGOs.85 The workers who went on strike in this case subsequently affirmed that, rather than some ‘suspicious outsiders’,it had been the workers themselves who had initiated and organised the strike.86

81 Interview, unionist, October 2015; interview, labour activist, November 2015. 82 Interviews, unionists from both factions, several labour activists, September 2015. 83 ‘Government responds to accusations of mishandling labour protests’, Eleven Myanmar, 25 February 2015; available at http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/local/government ‑responds‑accusations‑mishandling‑labour‑protests. 84 Only one unionist said, ‘Who said the struggle was created by communists? That was the government’s bullsh*t propaganda’ (interview, unionist, November 2015). 85 Interview, international organisation, December 2015. 86 Interview, workers, October 2015; leaders in the factory unions, November 2015.

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Underlying the divide between workers and labour institutions in this case is the corporatist notion that workers’ aggressive militant actions are some- how abnormal, and thus unacceptable. More seriously, corporatism may limit the potential of the labour movement to explore and develop other types of labour movement activity.Indeed, corporatist ideology frames economic issues as the sole legitimate focus for trade union activity, while excluding questions of power and its significance for the working class. This can lead to an apolitical and ultimately ineffectual labour movement.

9 Conclusion

This article has explored the causes and implications of corporatism’s institutionalisation in Myanmar and the growth of corporatist ideology among trade unionists, labour NGOs and labour activists. Notably, the corporatist approach of trade unionists, NGOs and activists contrasts sharply with workers’ continued militant activities amid Myanmar’s ongoing political transformation. It has been argued that the ILO has played a singularly influential role in making corporatism the dominant frame for industrial relations in Myanmar, while channelling the country’s incipient labour movement into a restrictive industrial relations system. On the one hand, the ILO had leverage over Myanmar policy owing to the economic aspirations of the civilian government to inte- grate domestic industrial production into global supply chains. On the other hand, the ILO’s influence on the labour movement is based on the symbolic capital it accumulated through its efforts to end forced labour during the years of direct military rule. The ILO’s current work among its member states focuses on promoting social dialogue through a tripartite structure. This corporatist model, treated as an ideal model in the ILO, has gained currency in Myanmar among the government, unions and broader civil society, while remaining less popular among employers. The tripartite structure has the advantage of giving stakeholders a channel to influence policy, which is an especially significant fact in Myan- mar where workers’ voices were previously heavily restricted in public space. It is, however, the ‘leadership’ of Myanmar’s trade union movement, rather than workers, who have embraced corporatism as an ideal model of industrial relations. Myanmar’s experience of IR reform thus diverges from that of other Asian countries. In South Korea and Taiwan, workers’ militant actions accompanied political transitions because of a lack of institutional channels for workers to pursue their grievances. It was only subsequently that these countries incorporated corporatism into their IR systems as a means to pacify industrial unrest.

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In Myanmar, however, corporatism has been brought about by an international actor—the ILO—which hoped (but has so far failed) to achieve industrial peace. Given the limited effectiveness of corporatist institutions in the country, workers continue to employ strikes as their primary tool to push employers to negotiate. While workers in Myanmar continue to pursue extra-institutional strikes, the long-term effect of trade unions’ embrace of a corporatist IR system may be to hobble the labour movements’ political potential by excluding militant industrial actions. Given that governments have introduced corporatism as a concession to workers’ militant actions in early industrialising countries, it is doubtful that workers in Myanmar unions will be able to gain meaningful outcomes through a tripartite system without militant actions.This concern would be especially valid in the time when the ILO’s leverage on the government may not be effective, with the organisation thus unable to play a balancing role to compensate the weak bargaining power of trade unions. Moreover, by limiting union activities to collaborative and apolitical tactics, this implanted corporatism may hinder the capacity of Myanmar workers to develop and exercise political muscles. However, it is too early to predict the long-term direction of industrial relations in Myanmar. Trade unions may be effective in convincing workers to embrace a corporatist agenda; workers may be successful in refusing the corporatist model and continuing their more militant tactics; or the two approaches may continue in parallel, as is currently the case.

Acknowledgments

Portions of this work were presented in thesis form in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master’s Degree of Cornell University. For helpful comments and feedback, I thank Sarosh Kuruvilla, Eli Friedman, Andi Kao, Matthew Fischer- Daly, Nick Krachler, Stephen Campbell and participants of the Burma/Myan- mar Research Forum at Cornell University (24–26 October 2014), a workshop on Current Issues in Southeast Asia by the Korean Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (20 December 2014), a workshop on State–Society Relations in Mekong Southeast Asia in Amsterdam (6–7 November 2016) and Labor and Employ- ment Relations Association (LERA) 69th Annual Meeting in Anaheim (1–4 June 2017).

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