Chea Chan and Myo Myo Aye hail from completely different nations—Cambodia within the former and Myanmar within the latter—but the tough predicaments each union leaders presently face sign a marked deterioration within the capacity of staff to arrange in Southeast Asia’s garment industries, the place freedom of affiliation has grow to be more and more elusive regardless of the manifold constitutional safeguards and company codes of conduct that should shield it.
On July 25, Myo Myo Aye, chief of the Solidarity Commerce Union of Myanmar, or STUM, was detained on what union members say have been unknown expenses and with out being given the good thing about due course of. The arrest occurred beneath distressing circumstances, they stated. Authorities had pressured Myo Myo Aye’s son to kneel at gunpoint to demand that she hand over her digital gadgets earlier than hauling her away in handcuffs. At a concurrent raid on the STUM’s headquarters, a dozen individuals in plain garments, together with the Shwe Pyi Thar ward administrator, have been described as forcibly coming into the workplace to confiscate laptops and cellphones. Chue Thwel, Myo Myo Aye’s daughter, was current on the second raid. Just a few days later, after she talked about her mom’s arrest on social media, she and three different STUM staffers, too, have been arrested.
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“Up to now, we have no idea the place human rights defender Myo Myo Aye, her daughter and the opposite detainees are being illegally held, or the explanations for his or her detention,” wrote organizations such because the Clear Garments Marketing campaign and Human Rights Watch in a joint assertion. “We’re, nonetheless, involved that they might be held on the interrogation middle at Shwe Pyi Thar, which is infamous for its use of torture and degrading therapy towards detainees. Myo Myo Aye additionally urgently wants entry to her common remedy for her pre-existing medical situations. Nonetheless, it has been unattainable to ship the remedy to her, and we’re thus involved for her well-being and security, in addition to that of the opposite detainees.”
It was solely in January that Honeys Garment Trade Restricted, a Burmese subsidiary of Japanese retailer Honeys Holdings, dropped a longstanding lawsuit towards Myo Myo Aye that accused the chief of defamation following the firing of practically 450 staff who had been protesting the manufacturing facility’s extreme manufacturing quotas. HGIL blamed Myo Myo Aye for rousing workers to strike by “guiding staff by Fb and different social community pages with flattery and motivational actions,” disrupting manufacturing facility manufacturing and smearing the corporate’s repute by newspaper articles and messages shared in a staff’ group chat.
“Honeys withdrew the lawsuit, however there was no recognition of the psychological and bodily hardship carried out to Myo Myo Aye during the last seven-plus years, and there was no apology,” stated Roy Ngerng, regional pressing attraction coordinator for East Asia on the Clear Garments Marketing campaign. “Myo Myo Aye additionally spent an amount of cash on the authorized charges and different prices, and there was no recognition of it by Honeys, or compensation. Honeys has nonetheless not acknowledged the violations dedicated towards the 448 staff, and to supply treatment or compensate them, so we are going to proceed to demand from Honeys an apology and compensation.”
Whereas its unclear what hyperlinks, if any, join Myo Myo Aye’s arrest with the Honeys lawsuit—the corporate has declined to remark—Johnson Yeung, worldwide pressing attraction coordinator on the Clear Garments Marketing campaign, stated that manufacturing facility house owners have weaponized the systemic repression in Myanmar towards STUM’s organizing work, and that manufacturers have the facility to make use of their affect to rewrite the narrative.
“Manufacturers and multi-stakesholder initiatives which are working in Myanmar have the leverage to get STUM activists out, and they need to collectively exert strain towards the suppliers and the junta,” he stated.
Chea Chan, a Cambodian mechanic who tried to kind Wing Star Footwear’ first unbiased union, was arrested with out a warrant and subsequently imprisoned for six months in early 2024. He was later launched after the costs have been dominated baseless by the Cambodian appeals courtroom, which concluded that the manufacturing facility’s administration had filed a police criticism with out tangible proof, making it a cut-and-dry case of retaliation.
Organizations such because the Clear Garments Marketing campaign and the Employee Rights Consortium have hit out at Asics and Muji, two of Wing Star Footwear’ patrons, for failing to supply the daddy of three with compensation for his and his household’s monetary losses, together with the lack of their residence, a 12 months after his launch. Whereas Wing Star Footwear has rehired Chan, he works in an outbuilding alone and much away from his co-workers, opposite to earlier claims by Asics that he could be reinstated.
“He beforehand supervised all of the mechanics and accessed each fundamental manufacturing facility buildings to take action, and isn’t mainly in solitary confinement doing issues that aren’t actually of any use as a really apparent option to put on him down and crush his spirit after he was already in jail for six months on expenses they utterly fabricated,” stated Thulsi Narayanasamy, director of worldwide advocacy on the Employee Rights Consortium.
On Wednesday, Wing Star Footwear supplied lower than one-third of the compensation required by Chan, plus assurances that he would return to his unique place and retain his proper to arrange. Chan, with the assist of the Cambodian Alliance of Commerce Unions, or CATU, has rejected the supply as insufficient, each to get well his land and pay for medical therapy for well being points he sustained throughout his time behind bars.
The Employee Rights Consortium has additionally poked holes in Asics’s Aug. 28 assertion to defend its response after a “rejoinder” by CATU. The group stated that whereas Asics conveys concern and stories provider engagement, its insistence that “additional investigation” is required, plus “false” claims concerning the origins of the felony criticism and guarantees of engagement with grassroots stakeholders, reveals an strategy the stays “procedural and insulated” and “used as a pretext to keep away from delivering significant remediation or real respect for freedom of affiliation.”
Narayansamy stated she discovered it obscure why Asics, which didn’t reply to a request for remark, is “so reluctant to do the suitable factor,” notably given its vital leverage over Wing Star Footwear, together with the power to withdraw enterprise. She stated that Asics’s failure to treatment its provider’s retaliatory felony criticism towards Chan is a part of a “worrying company backslide on human rights” that dismisses using criminalization to silence unionists within the area, compounding staff’ hardships.
“Asics’s failure to make sure compliance with a longstanding provider with a protracted observe file of rights abuses exposes an alarming hole within the firm’s capacity to uphold the human rights commitments it makes to customers,” she added. “Asics has each the duty and the means to resolve this ongoing violation proper now. Its acknowledged commitments to respect staff’ rights can solely be met by securing affordable compensation for Chan’s horrific ordeal and guaranteeing its provider upholds freedom of affiliation in order that 20,000 staff have an opportunity at enhancing their situations.”
