Myanmar law allowing strikes takes effect

YANGON: A new law in Myanmar giving workers the right to form unions and stage strikes has come into effect. An announcement on Saturday in the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the law took effect Friday and the Labour Department’s director general will oversee its implementation. President Thein Sein signed the law last October as part of reforms following decades of military repression. He leads an army-backed but elected government that took power last March. The reforms are aimed at achieving reconciliation with the pro-democracy movement of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and at encouraging Western nations to lift political and economic sanctions that were imposed over the previous military junta’s poor human rights record and failure to implement democracy. Lifting the sanctions would encourage foreign investment and help spur growth in the labor-intensive industrial sector. ap

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