Circumstances Prior To The Malayan Emergency - Protest and Strike

Protest and Strike

Beginning on 29 January 1945, a large strike occurred, centered around Singapore. It was largely in protest over the arrest and conviction (after two acquittals) of the former head of the Selangor section of the MPAJA, Soon Kwong, for punishing a Japanese collaborator on September 10, 1945, when the MPAJA was still in partial control of the country.

150,000 to 200,000 workers walked off the job; by the 31st Singapore was at a "standstill"; Soon Kwong was released on February 3.

A large demonstration was called for 15 February 1946, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Singapore. The organisers claimed that it was in memorial to the thousands of Malayans who had fallen in the defense of Singapore or been executed by the Japanese in the three weeks after that; but the authorities felt that it was an impertinent celebration of Britain's embarrassing defeat. They banned the demonstrations and on February 14 arrested 24 leading activists and placed them under deportation orders. On the 15th, demonstrators were confronted by troops who killed one and wounded 17 in Singapore and killed 17 in Johore.

Also in February, labour set up a country-wide organisation called the Pan Malayan General Labour Union (PMGLU). Over the ensuing 12 months there was a rapid expansion of trade unionism throughout Malaya, with the PMGLU as the guiding force; by April 1947 the PMGLU had a membership of 263,598—over half the total work force—and encompassed 85% of the individual trade unions. The attitude of the Malayan worker became more assertive during this period; for instance, "A strike was reported of Chinese and Indian hospital workers because they no longer wanted to be addressed as 'boy' . . . .", and workers began to see their subjection to physical punishments as unacceptable. Historian T.N. Harper writes of the period:

Union organisation developed a spontaneous momentum from below. Indian Labour Unions appeared in the localities. Ex-INA Indian National Army men led these organisations in many States, although there were exceptions to this. The Indian Labour Union in Kedah was led by a driver and coffeeshop owner, A. M. Samy, whose earlier connection with the INA was less pronounced. He exercised dominance over large areas of the State through a thondar pedai, a militant Dravidian youth militia, that enforced strike action and picketed toddy shops. Thondar pedai-style movements were a feature of Indian Labour Unions elsewhere; for example, in the Johore Bahru division of the Rubber Workers' Union thondar pedai orderlies wearing red arm bands organised meetings, and members subscribed a dollar a month to support the organisation.

Some of the Indian Labour Unions became affiliated with the PMGLU, others did not—most notably P. P. Narayanan's Negri Sembilan Estate Indian Workers' Union, which opted to remain a communal entity in order to fight the pay differential between Chinese and Indian workers. The period saw a considerable upsurge in the number of strikes: in March 1946 the docks and tin smelter at Penang were "paralysed"; in April a railway strike began which lasted several weeks; there was striking among Indian plantation labourers along the entire west coast of the peninsula; and unrest continued in Singapore. The journal British Malaya wrote in September 1946 that "there have been an average of 27 strikes a week for the last seven weeks . . . ." Between April 1946 and March 1947, 713,000 worker days, or 2 per employee, were lost to strikes in Malaya, and in Singapore, 1,173,000 worker days, ten per employee, were lost.

The government countered this movement by changing some of the laws and regulations on trade union activity, and resuming the enforcement of others that had been left in abeyance after the war.

By, at latest, early 1947, the ordinary trespassing law was being used to keep union organisers from addressing the workers on plantations. For instance in late March 1947, a large police force came to the Dublin estate in Kedah to arrest a Federation of Trades Unions official for trespassing as he was speaking to a group of workers there.

When the workers closed ranks around the official to protect him the police opened fire, killing one worker and wounding five.

Incidents such as this demonstrate that the situation was already somewhat revolutionary in that the workers were disputing, at least to some extent, the rights of private property, and the establishment was willing to use severe measures against them. Indeed among Indian estate labour in Kedah in early 1947 there appears to have been something almost akin to the formation of soviets:

The situation throughout February was that labourers were virtually in control of many of the estates and there seems to have been an almost complete breakdown in managerial authority. Labourers began taking over estates and managers were forced to retreat to the safety of neighbouring towns.

In a clash at the Bedong estate on 3 March 1947, 21 labourers were injured; "the strike leader died of injuries received at the hands of the police a few days later"; 61 were sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

The 1940 Trade Union Ordinance required that unions in Malaya (unlike those in Britain) be registered, which meant that they had to open their books and other processes to inspection by government officers. The registration provisions were not initially enforced after World War II but beginning around the time that the civil administration (Malayan Union) took over from the British Military Administration (BMA) in April 1946, moves were made to require trade unions to register.

The registration rules were somewhat restrictive; for instance government employees and non-government employees could not belong to the same union or even to unions affiliated with each other, and union funds could not be used for political purposes. Under these rules the GLU's were un-registerable and therefore could not operate legally.

The Singapore GLU (SGLU) reached an accommodation with the Trade Union Adviser in Singapore, S.P. Garrett, whereby it could reorganise as a Federation (not a union) and operate legally without registering. Accordingly, the SGLU became the Singapore Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) in August 1946 and was (temporarily) safe from the law.

Shortly afterwards (August 25) the PMGLU on the peninsula, hoping for a similar application of the rules, reorganised itself as the Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTU). However, the Trade Union Adviser in Malaya, John Brazier, was less sympathetic than Garrett and he and the registrar, Mr. Prentiss, quickly thwarted this move by ruling that all of the Federation's branch unions, which had to register, could not accept the guidance of any non-registered entity, and could not remit a portion of their funds to a federation or use funds for sympathy strikes. This left the PMFTU and its affiliates in legal quicksand, although no moves were taken yet to prosecute them.

The labour movement was dealt a serious legal blow in October 1947 when the right not to be fired merely for the act of striking, which had been somewhat customary although by no means universally upheld, was effectively repealed by the ruling of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Sir Harold Willan in the case of three woman rubber tappers who were contesting their dismissal for striking. He ruled that striking was a breach of contract and that therefore there was no legal impediment to firing.

Other setbacks to the labour movement included the convictions of two prominent Indian trade unionists on charges of intimidation. In November 1947 S. Appadurai, vice-president of the Penang Federation of Trade Unions and chairman of the Indian section of the Peneng Harbour Labour Association was charged for having written to an employer warning him against using blacklegs. He was found guilty and sent to prison. In January 1948 K. Vanivellu, secretary of the Kedah Federation of Rubber Workers Unions was charged for having written to an employer asking him to reinstate 14 workers who had been dismissed for striking and suggesting that if he did not, the remaining workers might leave the job.

For this Vanivellu was sentenced to 18 months hard abour.