Fourth trade union training concludes in Mizoram

Khonumthung News

8 March 2006 

The three-day fourth trade union leadership training inaugurated on March 5, concluded yesterday in the All Burma Lushai Women's Organization (ABLWO) office in Aizawl, Mizoram, India. Twenty-five trainees from Chin state, Burma participated in the training.

Two trainers from Thailand and Delhi, India taught Labour standards, History of Trade Union in Burma, International Solidarity of Trade Union, Basic Human Rights, Democracy, Comparison of Democracy and Dictatorship and Document of Forced Labour. Federal Trade Union of Burma (FTUB) and Federal Trade Union of Chinland (FTUC) jointly organized the training.

Group discussions and practical training was conducted once a day to help the trainees acquire more skills in the labour sector. Dr. Zaw Win Aung, Assistant General Secretary of FTUB Western Region (WR) and the Chief of Bureau of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) told Khonumthung, “This training is meant to impart awareness of labour rights violation to the trainees.”

Labour rights have been violated in Burma, including Chin state, by the military regime in Burma. The trainees will use in practical terms what they learn from the three days training inside Chin state, Burma and the Indo- Burma border, where gross violation of labour rights has been reported.

Ronnie M Than Lwin, Administrative Executive of FTUB, based in Thailand said, “I have witnessed lots of improvement in FTUC within a very short time. Lot of cases of forced labour and labour rights violation has been sent by FTUC to the international community.”

Forced labour as porters, in road construction, official building construction, army camps, constructions and renovations, bridge constructions, tea plantations among others has been a common issue in Burma under the military regime. Thanks to the FTUC, since its inception in 2002, reports of forced labour and labour rights violation in Chin state and Indo-Burma border are submitted to the FTUB, which are forwarded to International Trade Union (ITU) and to International Labour Organization (ILO) and other International Labour Organizations.

Training for workers of the FTUC had been conducted in 2003. Trade Union Rights and Democracy has been taught in the 2003 training.

Meanwhile, the trainers, Dr. Zaw Win Aung and Ronnie M Than Lwin, leave Aizawl to give similar training to the Nagas Trade Union in Manipur. The resource persons felt it their duty to raise the issue of labour and create understanding amongst the different ethnic groups of Burma.

The trade union plans to provide better, effective trade union leadership, labour training in the future to produce more organizers with better capacity to organize more people inside Chin state.

Trade union activities had been banned in Burma since 1962. Meanwhile the exiled trade unions of Burma regularly collect reports on labour and human rights violations and documentation are sent to ILO through ITU. ILO in its 80-year history, took action against Burma in 1999, when technical and financial assistance to Burma were suspended. 

Five members set up FTUB in 1991, which has expanded to a large union in a decade. FTUB is an umbrella organization of the trade unions of various Burma ethnic groups, besides the unions in industry, transportation and agriculture sectors inside Burma.