Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, 1-9-08, Thai-Burma Border Trip

By Jodi

The next time you buy apparel from Nike, Old Navy, or Tommy Hilfiger, check the label. If it says "Made in Thailand," consider the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, which we visited today.

More than 100,000 migrant workers from Burma live in the Mae Sot area, and more than half are working illegally. Driven to Thailand by the deteriorating economic situation since the military took power as well as human rights abuses--rape, murder, and forced relocation, for example--many work in the 40 knitting, garment, chopsticks, and other factories.

They're working illegally because they must be registered by their employers, who don't want to spend the 3,500 bhat (33 baht=$1) to do so. And since the police and factory owners are buddies, the factory owners have no incentive to do the right thing.

When employers do register a worker, they're given a photocopy of the work permit--a useless document when a migrant worker is detained by the police. So the factories owners can exploit the people from Burma through

• 11 hour days
  
• wages about 35 to 70 bhat a day. about half the minimum wage
  
• no sick leave
• 1 day off a month
• crowded living conditions
• health hazards, such as hands being cut off at the chopsticks factory

The association (the government won't allow the word "union"), which, like other organizations we've visited, isn't legal, trains workers to organize and then sends them back to the factories. The association works with the factory workers as well as construction and agricultural workers, shopkeepers, and domestic/entertainment workers. They have helped launch 20 strikes, lodge complaints with the Labor Protection Office, and file lawsuits. For their efforts, association members have been attacked. Factory workers put out a bounty on the founder, a student activist from 8-8-88. Only since UNHCR gave him refugee status--he left the country and returned, and now keeps a low profile--does he feel safer.

Like other issues concerning Burma, it's complex. I'm not sure I would buy Nike running shoes made in Thailand because of the migrants workers--to keep them employed and help them support their families--or not buy, to protest the poor working conditions.

But I'm sure I'll remember the Burmese man who introduced the session. He was missing one leg, one arm, and three fingers on his remaining hand. Someone later told me he was former SPDC, maimed when a landmine he was setting exploded unexpectedly. Now the man, who has a kind face and soft smile, translates and writers articles for the the association.

Like I said, it's complex.

Action Steps

• Read your clothes' labels and consider the source.
• Pressure owners of the factories to have their Thai businessmen improve working conditions for the migrant workers.