Jury Chai : Factories located along the Thai-Burma border, within the Rangoon industrial zone, and in the whole of Burma will close at the beginning of November.
Factory laborers along the Thai-Burma border report that the closures will ensure that laborers participate in the November 7th elections.
According to a source close to the Three Pagodas Pass (TPP) Burmese authorities, factories in TPP will cease operations roughly three or four days before the elections; this source also reported that factories in the whole of Burma have been ordered by state authorities to close before the elections.
“We heard [the factories] will close at the end of this month. Workers said they will close due to the elections”, the source said. Reportedly, the orders for the closures come from the Burmese state, rather than from TPP Township authorities or factory bosses. Factories are expected to be closed for roughly a month, and will reopen after the elections.
The source reported that Burmese authorities were concerned that factory workers would not vote in the upcoming elections due to their long workdays; at the same time, Burmese authorities are allegedly worried that the factory closures on the Thai-Burma border will give a temporarily unemployed workforce time to protest or interfere with election proceedings on November 7th.
Economic observers on the Thai-Burma border predicted that due to the planned factory closures, checkpoints along the Thai-Burma border, and trade from Burma into Thailand, will be shut down until after the elections.
“It will close, the passage from Burma into Thailand, [starting on] the 1st of November until after the elections”, the observers opined.
Factories, workshops, and companies in Rangoon, including liquor factories, textile factories, and fish product factories are expected to close for a month, according a staff member from Asia Metal Company (ACM) in Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone in Rangoon.
“Companies will close all the next month due to the election. But our company is not closed yet,” said the AMC staff member.
The AMC source claimed that workers from many factories haven’t yet been made aware of the upcoming factory closures by their supervisors.
According to a worker from Marker Co. Ltd in Rangoon, the factory closures will be confirmed once factory bosses share the news with their workers.
