History of Myanmar's labour movement (34/505)

This post presents page 34 of The History of the Myanmar Labour Movement by Thakin Lwin (Bagan Books, 1968).

Vocabulary:

လျစ်လျူရှု ။ look on unconcernedly; ignore; regard with indifference; turn a blind eye
ညှဉ်းပန်း ။ torture, ill treat
ပြည်နှင်ဒဏ် ။ deportation; exile; banishment
အလုပ်လက်မဲ့ ။ the unemployed, the jobless
ကြေးစား ။ mercenary
ပျော့ညံ့ ။ weak; easily swayed; spineless
ဗန်းပြ ။ to show off
သက်သေသာဓက ။ supporting evidence, example, proof
ညီလာခံ ။ conference

Translation:

In light of the increased power of the organised labour movement, the capitalist government and big capitalists joining hands together not only completely ignored freedom of association and the reform of workers' work time, wages and work conditions, but also broke up worker solidarity by using tactics such as the forceful suppression of worker protests and strikes with armed military units and police units; the arrest and torture of [labour] leaders; punishment with imprisonment, fines and deportation; firing of striking workers; causing unemployment by closing offices and factories; hiring thugs to wreck havoc; and bribing and giving opportunities to spineless labour leaders.

Well known supporting evidence are the executions of mine worker leaders in the Molly Maguire case in the State of Pennsylvanian in 1875, and the suppression with armed military units of thousands of workers at a railway steel production factory in 1877.

As a result of the government and capitalists carrying out those unjust actions, the solidarity of the working people strongly spread out. During the 4 years from 1881 to 1884 there were on average about 500 strikes per year with a total of about 150,000 workers involved and in 1885 there were 250,000 workers involved in 700 strike, and 1886 there were about 1,572 strikes with a total of over 600,000 workers involved, and it became evident that the workers' power could not be suppressed.

Since the American city of Chicago was a centre of leftists workers unions, [it was decided] at the American Federation of Labour (AFL)'s fourth conference held in that city in 1884 that in order to participate in the 8-hour workday struggle on the coming May 1st, 1886...