
Issue No 79		24 November 2000

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International

Burma: Workers Act on ILO Ruling

Energy workers' trade unions across the Asia-Pacific have urged Western oil and gas companies to "cease investment in Burma while the use of forced labour continues".

The unions were attending a regional energy conference organised in Bangkok this week by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions

(ICEM).

The Burma pull-out call was unanimously approved by oil, gas, electric power and coal mining unions from Australia, Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The energy unions noted with alarm the military rulers' decision to cease all cooperation with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) which last week called on all member state to cease activities that were implicated with the Burmese regime's use of bonded labout..

In 1998, the ILO found that forced labour was "generalised and systematic" in Burma. This verdict was backed by the world's governments, employers and unions, who meet on equal terms within the ILO.

Last week, the ILO Governing Body ruled that the Burmese junta has still not taken the required steps to end forced labour. The new finding follows an ILO mission to Burma this October. Burma therefore remains in serious breach of ILO Convention 29 on forced labour.

Unless the regime bans forced labour by 30 November - and there seems little likelihood that it will - then the ILO will advise companies, states and international organisations to review their relations with Burma, so as to ensure that they do not in any way support or condone forced labour.

The ILO will also ask the UN Economic and Social Committee to tackle the Burmese situation. The ILO itself described these moves as "unprecedented".

If the ILO spotlight has remained on Burma, this is largely due to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which has continuously compiled and forwarded new evidence of the abuses. More than a million Burmese are still subjected to forced labour, toiling on construction sites for roads, railways, military installations and tourist infrastructure, the ICFTU says.

A voluminous new ICFTU file, sent to the ILO last week, documents still more cases of forced labour relating directly to the building of the gas pipeline linking Burma and Thailand and the construction of tourist infrastructure. One of the country's military leaders, Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, is directly involved.

TotalFinaElf and Unocal are in a joint pipeline venture with Burma's state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) to bring gas to Thailand from the Yadana field off the Burmese coast. Since its inception, this project has stood accused of serious human rights abuses, including the use of forced labour. MOGE has also been linked to the laundering of the proceeds from Burmese junta's international sales of illicit drugs.

Quite apart from these allegations, multinational energy investors are clearly helping to prop up one of the world's most repressive regimes. Another oil company heavily involved in Burma is British-based Premier.

The full horror of the Burmese system is again shown in the latest ICFTU evidence. Men, women and children are drafted in for unpaid work - notably as forced porters for the Burmese army, as the country's long-running civil war continues. Forced porters are often sent ahead into minefields. The beating, rape and murder of forced labourers are commonplace.

The following is the full text of this week's resolution on Burma by the Asia-Pacific energy unions:

"Oil, gas, electric power and coal mining unions attending the ICEM Asia-Pacific Regional Energy Conference on November 20-21 in Bangkok, note with alarm the decision of the military rulers in Burma to cease all cooperation with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ILO has moved firmly and decisively to isolate Burma because of the continuing use of forced labour.

We reaffirm that freedom from forced labour is a fundamental human right and condemn the Burmese military government for the denial of this basic right.

We call upon all international investors, especially those in the oil and gas industries, to cease investment in Burma while the use of forced labour continues.

ICEM affiliates in ASEAN nations are called upon to press their governments to use all intergovernmental means possible to make Burma apply international minimum human rights standards in the workplace, including abolition of forced labour.

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"The ILO has clearly ruled that forced labour is continuing and systematic in Burma, and our energy unions in the region have made their views very plain," commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels this week. "

The world must not tolerate slavery. The ILO is part of the UN system, and the United Nations should now urgently decide on the most appropriate international measures against the brutal Burmese regime - up to and including mandatory economic sanctions."

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  Issue 79 contents

Interview: Back on Track
After blowing the whistle on rail privatization, NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully is rebuilding bridges with the trade union movement.

Unions: The Problem with Organising
It may be the new mantra, but Brisbane Institute director Peter Botsman argues that organising may be the wrong to go for a movement attempting to attract a new breed of workers.

International: Burma: Workers Act on ILO Ruling
Energy workers' trade unions across the Asia-Pacific have urged Western oil and gas companies to "cease investment in Burma while the use of forced labour continues".

Economics: Rethinking Incomes Policy
While many have thrown incomes policy out with the Acoord bathwater, Graham White argues it still has a role to play.

History: What Goes Around Comes Around
Labor Council's Mark Lennon argues that while trade unions - and labour history - might be unfashionable, there's life left in both of them.

Education: Peas in a Pod
Both sides of politics must take blame for funding levels in our public schools, argues NSW Teachers Federation president Sue Simpson.

Satire: Hurley Rebukes Actors' Guild: I'm No Actor!
Liz Hurley has responded angrily to claims by actors that she crossed a picket line by filming an Estee Lauder ad.

Review: It's Only a Job
In a stunning new book, author Phil Thornton and photographer Paul Jones have combined to portray working life in all its diversity through the eyes of ordinary people like process worker Sharonak Shannon

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