Military Regime Jails Myanmar Shop Owner for Employee Pay Raise

A Myanmar shopkeeper has been imprisoned for raising his staff members in line with the nation’s high inflation. A New York Times article claims that Pyae Phyo Zaw’s three mobile stores were closed for the crime of increasing worker wages, and military government officials detained him.

Not only Pyae Phyo Zaw is having this problem. For such behavior, at least ten other shops have been imprisoned in Myanmar. Under a vaguely-written statute meant to quell criticism, all of them may spend up to three years in prison.

A legal specialist clarified that pay increases are not against law in Myanmar. The government has been charging company owners, however, of “undermining the regime by making people believe that inflation is rising.”

The military junta thinks that pay rises in line with terrible inflation constitute encouragement for instability. Declared shuttered for upsetting “the peace and order of the community,” a notice outside one of Pyae Phyo Zaw’s stores said

One of Zaw’s staff members, commenting anonymously, stated, “We were very grateful for the salary increase; now the shop is closed and I don’t get paid.” “Ordinary people like us are suffering from almost hopelessly high prices.”

The military junta known as Tatmadaw toppled Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021, therefore acquiring power under control. Since then, popular upheavals against the government have aggravated an economic crisis the nation faces.

Australian economist Sean Turnell told the newspaper “Myanmar’s economy post-2021 moves on from crisis, journeyed through chaos, and now arrives at what is surely its near collapse as a formally functioning, developing entity.”