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Chea Chan and Myo Myo Aye hail from different countries\u2014Cambodia in the former and Myanmar in the latter\u2014yet the difficult predicaments both union leaders currently face signal a marked deterioration in the ability of workers to organize in Southeast Asia\u2019s garment industries, where freedom of association<\/a> has become increasingly elusive despite the manifold constitutional safeguards and corporate codes of conduct that are meant to protect it.<\/p>\n On July 25, Myo Myo Aye, leader of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar, or STUM, was detained on what union members say were unknown charges and without being given the benefit of due process. The arrest happened under distressing circumstances, they said. Authorities had forced Myo Myo Aye\u2019s son to kneel at gunpoint to demand that she hand over her digital devices before hauling her away in handcuffs. At a concurrent raid at the STUM\u2019s headquarters, a dozen people in plain clothes, including the Shwe Pyi Thar ward administrator, were described as forcibly entering the office to confiscate laptops and cellphones. Chue Thwel, Myo Myo Aye\u2019s daughter, was present at the second raid. A few days later, after she mentioned her mother\u2019s arrest on social media, she and three other STUM staffers, too, were arrested.<\/p>\n More from Sourcing Journal<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTo date, we do not know where human rights defender Myo Myo Aye, her daughter and the other detainees are being illegally held, or the reasons for their detention,\u201d wrote organizations such as the Clean Clothes Campaign and Human Rights Watch in a joint statement. \u201cWe are, however, concerned that they may be held at the interrogation center at Shwe Pyi Thar, which is notorious for its use of torture and degrading treatment against detainees. Myo Myo Aye also urgently needs access to her regular medication for her pre-existing medical conditions. However, it has been impossible to deliver the medication to her, and we are thus concerned for her well-being and safety, as well as that of the other detainees.\u201d<\/p>\n It was only in January that Honeys Garment Industry Limited, a Burmese subsidiary of Japanese retailer Honeys Holdings, dropped a longstanding lawsuit<\/a> against Myo Myo Aye that accused the leader of defamation following the firing of nearly 450 workers who had been protesting the factory\u2019s excessive production quotas. HGIL blamed Myo Myo Aye for rousing employees to strike by \u201cguiding workers through Facebook and other social network pages with flattery and motivational activities,\u201d disrupting factory production and smearing the company\u2019s reputation through newspaper articles and messages shared in a workers\u2019 group chat.<\/p>\n \u201cHoneys withdrew the lawsuit, but there was no recognition of the mental and physical hardship done to Myo Myo Aye over the last seven-plus years, and there was no apology,\u201d said Roy Ngerng, regional urgent appeal coordinator for East Asia at the Clean Clothes Campaign. \u201cMyo Myo Aye also spent an amount of money on the legal fees and other costs, and there was no recognition of it by Honeys, or compensation. Honeys has still not acknowledged the violations committed against the 448 workers, and to provide remedy or compensate them, so we will continue to demand from Honeys an apology and compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n While its unclear what links, if any, connect Myo Myo Aye\u2019s arrest with the Honeys lawsuit\u2014the company has declined to comment\u2014Johnson Yeung, international urgent appeal coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign, said that factory owners have weaponized the systemic repression in Myanmar against STUM\u2019s organizing work, and that brands have the power to use their influence to rewrite the narrative.<\/p>\n \u201cBrands and multi-stakesholder initiatives that are operating in Myanmar have the leverage to get STUM activists out, and they should collectively exert pressure against the suppliers and the junta,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Chea Chan, a Cambodian mechanic who attempted to form Wing Star Shoes\u2019<\/a> first independent union, was arrested without a warrant and subsequently imprisoned for six months in early 2024. He was later released after the charges were ruled baseless by the Cambodian appeals court, which concluded that the factory\u2019s management had filed a police complaint without tangible evidence, making it a cut-and-dry case of retaliation.<\/p>\n Organizations such as the Clean Clothes Campaign and the Worker Rights Consortium have hit out at Asics and Muji, two of Wing Star Shoes\u2019 buyers, for failing to provide the father of three with compensation for his and his family\u2019s financial losses, including the loss of their home, a year after his release. While Wing Star Shoes has rehired Chan, he works in an outbuilding alone and far away from his co-workers, contrary to earlier claims by Asics that he would be reinstated.<\/p>\n \u201cHe previously supervised all the mechanics and accessed both main factory buildings to do so, and is not basically in solitary confinement doing things that aren\u2019t really of any use as a very obvious way to wear him down and crush his spirit after he was already in jail for six months on charges they completely fabricated,\u201d said Thulsi Narayanasamy, director of international advocacy at the Worker Rights Consortium.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Wing Star Shoes offered less than one-third of the compensation required by Chan, plus assurances that he would return to his original position and retain his right to organize. Chan, with the support of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions, or CATU, has rejected the offer as inadequate, both to recover his land and pay for medical treatment for health issues he sustained during his time behind bars.<\/p>\n The Worker Rights Consortium has also poked holes in Asics\u2019s Aug. 28 statement to defend its response after a \u201crejoinder\u201d by CATU. The organization said that while Asics conveys concern and reports supplier engagement, its insistence that \u201cfurther investigation\u201d is needed, plus \u201cfalse\u201d claims regarding the origins of the criminal complaint and promises of engagement with grassroots stakeholders, shows an approach the remains \u201cprocedural and insulated\u201d and \u201cused as a pretext to avoid delivering meaningful remediation or genuine respect for freedom of association.\u201d<\/p>\n Narayansamy said she found it difficult to understand why Asics, which did not respond to a request for comment, is \u201cso reluctant to do the right thing,\u201d particularly given its significant leverage over Wing Star Shoes, including the ability to withdraw business. She said that Asics\u2019s failure to remedy its supplier\u2019s retaliatory criminal complaint against Chan is part of a \u201cworrying corporate backslide on human rights\u201d that dismisses the use of criminalization<\/a> to silence unionists<\/a> in the region, compounding workers\u2019 hardships.<\/p>\n \u201cAsics\u2019s failure to ensure compliance with a longstanding supplier with a long track record of rights abuses exposes an alarming gap in the company\u2019s ability to uphold the human rights commitments it makes to consumers,\u201d she added. \u201cAsics has both the responsibility and the means to resolve this ongoing violation right now. Its stated commitments to respect workers\u2019 rights can only be met by securing reasonable compensation for Chan\u2019s horrific ordeal and ensuring its supplier upholds freedom of association so that 20,000 workers have a chance at improving their conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n