Trade union internationalism and political change in Myanmar Nicholas Henry * School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia Networks of trade union activists working as part of the global union movement have played a central role in political change in Myanmar. In response to trade union advocacy, compliance with International Labour Organization (ILO) standards was made a key condition for the lifting of sanctions on Myanmar, leading the current civilian government to pass revised labour laws allowing the formation of independent trade unions. Union activists have taken advantage of this new freedom, with a rapid growth in registration of local union organizations since 2011. Based on recent fieldwork in Myanmar, including interviews with union leaders and ILO officials, this paper presents an empirical analysis of political relationships formed by local and international union organizations in the context of multi-level political change. In this case study of translating international norms into domestic political change, local and international trade union networks are shown to have a significant impact on achieving com- pliance with international labour standards. Keywords: Myanmar; trade unions; International Labour Organization; international norms; non-state actors; political change As part of political reforms in Myanmar 1 since 2011 there has been a major expansion of freedom for working people to organize trade unions, with legislative change allowing for the rapid growth of a legal trade union movement. This article analyses the process by which local and international networks of labour organizations and activists exerted effective pressure on Myanmar to substan- tially reform the governance of industrial relations. The reforms in Myanmar offer a case study of the agency of non-state actors in promoting compliance with international norms, specifically the international labour standards including Freedom of Association (Convention 87) and Abolition of Forced Labour (Conventions 29 and 105) enacted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Myanmar’s flouting of international labour standards since the 1960s had gained the country pariah status in the ILO and until 2011 it had been considered a hard case for the effec- tiveness of sanctions in promoting labour standards. 2 The main argument of this article is that net- works of local trade union activists working as part of the international trade union movement have played a crucial role in setting the agenda for political change in Myanmar’s industrial relations regime by leveraging international labour standards linked to sanctions, translating inter- national norms into domestic legislative change through participation at multiple levels including negotiations mediated through the ILO, and taking advantage of new opportunities to organize workers into trade unions as a force for further political and economic change. The overview *Email: Nicholas.henry@deakin.edu.au 1 Myanmar was known as Burma until 1989 when the military regime in effective control of the country announced the change of name. Although the change was recognized by the United Nations, opposition groups and some govern- ments continued to use the old name to protest against the illegitimacy of the military regime. Following the change of government in 2011 and subsequent reforms, the controversy has become less relevant and the name Myanmar is now used by most in the country, including trade union activists. 2 Weifeng Zhou and Ludo Cuyvers, ‘Linking International Trade and Labour Standards: The Effectiveness of Sanctions under the European Union’s GSP’, Journal of World Trade 45, no. 1 (2011): 63–85. Global Change, Peace & Security, 2015 Vol. 27, No. 1, 69–84, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14781158.2015.997688 © 2015 Taylor & Francis Downloaded by [Deakin University Library] at 10:01 29 June 2016