Workers have no right to form a union, and independent labor activity is ruthlessly suppressed.
In February, the military shelled a village that dared host a trade union event on human rights. Workers making clothes for U.S. companies are paid as little as 8 cents an hour. Myanmar is infamous for its systematic use of forced labor. Each day, men, women and children are rounded up at the point of a bayonet, forcibly held in camps and put to work on road and other construction and commercial projects, made to carry military supplies, or even to serve as human land mine detonators in combat zones. Now Myanmar's indefensible practices pose a test to the Clinton administration and the industrial world.