Yangon Not surprisingly, the more people we visit, the more we peel the onion and come closer to understanding the full challenges for workers and their unions in organizing in Burma. Over the first three days of meetings for example when talking to labor sources the union density has fallen from 2% or roughly 250,000 members …
Month: October 2013
Former Political Prisoners Making Plans for the Future in Myanmar
Yangon Having people go around the room and introduce themselves is a common routine, but having people say their names and then the years they were imprisoned is somehow both sobering and immediately inspirational because just those words from former students, lawyers, professors, and regular workers who were jailed for advocating for democracy speaks volumes …
The Challenges of Building a Labor & Political Movement in Exile and on the Ground
Yangon Dr. Thaung Htun had been the head of the foreign section of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front. When all hell broke loose he fled along with other student leaders only to return about 25 years later after the country removed front leaders from the blacklist. He had formed a nonprofit in the US …