Myanmar’s protesting workers
Two weeks after the military took power in a coup, work stoppages and walkouts are undermining the ruling generals’ attempt to assert authority. The walkouts have been especially notable among government employees.
Hundreds of thousands of doctors, bankers, trash collectors, electricity workers and essential employees have kept protesting, even as soldiers try to intimidate them. The civil disobedience movement targets services essential to military rule, and is gaining support.
The walkouts have been widespread. At the nation’s power provider, about 60 percent of employees have walked off their jobs. In Yangon, people have started taking their own trash to neighborhood garbage bins during the trash collectors’ walkout.
Quote: “There is no way we can work under a dictatorship,” said Dr. Kyaw Zin, a surgeon who led one of the nation’s first walkouts at the government-run Mandalay General Hospital. “I am pretty sure we can bring down the regime.”
The New York Times
