Shwe Aung
Shwe T. Aung left his final year at university and his home country of Burma to work on a ship in 1995. That was when he first saw the difference between Burma and other countries, and the difference between working union and working without a union. In Burma, “police arrest people for no reason to get bribes,” said Aung. One time he stood up to the police and told them that they were not supposed to be doing that and he was going to go to the Chief of Police. The officer then gave back the bribe money.
In Bangkok, General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) Maung Maung (CHECK SPELLING) asked him to join the union. Shwe worked on trying to set up a Seafarers union in Burma.
In 1997-98, he was working on a ship of Burmese workers, who did not get paid for 8 months. They were afraid to ask for their wages and passed through countries in Africa where there were weak unions. They waited until they got to Brazil to call the ITF. The shipping company paid the Ambassador to intimidate the workers and threatened to put Shwe in jail. Eventually, after meeting with the ITF Inspector, the Captain, and Ambassador, they obtained the money for the workers. Radio Free Asia, the Asian version of Voice of America, did a story on the incident and interviewed Shwe. He had to go back to Thailand because in Burma, he had been placed on a blacklist for his union activities. He couldn’t find a job because every agency knew him as a troublemaker.
Then an opportunity came up to work with ITF. They were planning to sail an Exhibition Ship for Labor issues around the world to educate about child labor, forced labor, conditions facing seafarers. He was offered a contract as an “AB”, an Able-bodied Seaman. Eight days before the end of the contract in 2000, the ship sank in Venezuela’s Orinoco River as a result of a collision. “Nobody had anything except for the clothes on their backs,” said Shwe.
Everyone obtained passports from their own countries, but when Shwe applied for a new passport, the Burmese government wanted to take him back to Burma. He sent a letter to the ITF. It took 9 months to get a passport. During that time, he had to report to the INS everyday. He didn’t speak Spanish and became depressed. The Burmese passport had some kind of memo attached to it that would mean he would have to go back to Burma, where he was likely to be jailed for his labor activism, instead of Thailand, where he wanted to go.
He applied for asylum because he was scared to go to Burma. They said no so he applied to the Canadian Ambassador. The Canadian unions wanted to help. But because of the memo attached to his case file, he could not get it from Canada because they were contacting Burma.
The ITF tried to bring him to London on a tourist visa because you had to be there in person to apply for asylum. But when he applied for the tourist visa and told them he was going to apply for asylum, the UK did not let him get a tourist visa.
He received an extension to stay in Rio Di Janeiro for 6 months. With one day left, a ship came in for loading. The ITF had good relations with the ship, so he joined the crew. 2 months later the ship came to the US. The ITF called Jim ___ and Dean Corgey at SIU in Houston. They hired a lawyer to go down to the docks and meet Shwe. Immigration got there first and Shwe was taken to an immigration detention center. He stayed there for a month through x-mas and new years. Finally immigration let him out until his court date 6 months later. The judge called Maung Maung in Thailand to confirm his story and he was granted asylum.
SIU sent him to their Seamean School in Piney Point, MD. Then there was a job opening for an ITF Inspector, based at SIU. He didn’t have experience at it, but he said, “If you give me 6 months and I don’t do the job, I’ll quit”.
Today, Shwe helps mariners, union and non-union, from around the world that dock in ports in the Texas Gulf coast. He is thankful for the opportunity that SIU has given him. “Jimbo and Dean have been really good to me,” he says. Known for his tenacity in securing the wages owed to the workers, Shwe has dishonest ship captains quaking in their boots. Some ship owners think he’s being too strict, but Shwe says, “I just calculate what is owed to the workers, not one cent more, not a cent less.” Jim (McGee? VP or Pres?) says of Shwe’s work: “He’s done a great job for seafarers. In enforcing contracts and securing unpaid wages, he’s collected more for the workers than anyone.” Shwe was featured in an SIU newspaper this year for leading the effort to collect over $200,000 in back pay for workers on a ship that had been detained in Houston.
Quote:
“I want to educate the Asian people and change the laws about unions. It’s really bad here. On the ships, I see that they don’t complain. I always tell them that you have to stand up for yourself. I tell them my life story. IF you don’t do something, it will affect the next generation. Think about the next generation.”