L A B O U R - U A E
Poor Living Conditions Prompt Protests
by Meena Janardhan
DUBAI — The room measures just 10 square metres, but six people live in it. Their belongings are stored outside, where they have to weather the sun, dust and wind.
Food is cooked outside as well — on makeshift stoves with gas cylinders precariously hanging in all possible angles.
These are the conditions in which workers live in several of the private labour camps in the United Arab Emirates, whose residents are mostly foreign migrant workers in garment and construction firms.
Not for long, however, as authorities are clamping down on organisations that fail to adhere to International Labour Organisation (ILO) stipulations on working conditions. Half of this country's 3.8 million residents are Asian workers.
The workers are not keeping quiet either — several protest marches and demonstrations against these insensitive employers were held at the start of the year.
The accommodations are covered by their work contracts, but many see the actual conditions only upon reaching here. Often, employers fail to pay salaries for many months at a stretch and workers are forced to live on just one meal a day and to subsist on handouts from charities and friends for daily expenses.
They dare not protest for they fear of losing their jobs, after having paid huge amounts of money to get here in the first place.
"Those (government-required conditions for camps) all just on paper as far as many employers are concerned," said Rafiq, a Pakistani labourer who works in a garments company based in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the emirates in the UAE.
"We live in such terrible conditions and its amazing how we don't fall sick. We have to jump over each other's beds to get around the room; there's no window to let in fresh air and even the doors open out into dark, airless corridors," he related.
"Not just that, apart from such terrible living conditions, even at the workplace our employers do not spare us," added Harilal (name changed), an Indian labourer in Dubai.
Harilal was one among the 50 workers who marched 16 kilometres to the Labour Ministry in Dubai in December to protest the non-payment of their salaries for five months.
New government regulations for labour camps that are in the pipeline keep ILO requisites in mind and state that each worker must be allotted a living area of not less than 10 square metres.
Every 10 workers must be provided with a toilet, a wash basin and a shower. At least one kitchen must be provided proportionately to the number of workers and a dining room must be big enough to accommodate at least one-third of the workers at a time.
The design and fittings of a kitchen and a dining room must also meet hygienic and occupational safety rules. In addition, a workers' compound must be provided with a rubbish room or a rubbish collection point with a number of bins.
The tighter regulations now underway come amid government figures showing rising unrest among workers. A recent report released by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs puts the number of labour protests lodged at the ministry in 2003 at 8,684, with unpaid salary disputes topping the list.
"We have not been paid our salaries; we have no food and have lived on just one bowl of rice a day for many weeks; we have borrowed from friends and have been forced to buy basic necessities on credit," Harilal said. "Besides unpaid salaries, we have not received leave pay nor air tickets for vacation."
He adds that workers who ended their service were denied their gratuity. Others were penalized for taking a day's leave, and have two days' renumeration cut from their salaries, he says.
Employers have been known to charge workers nearly 1,500 dirhams (about 400 U.S. dollars) for labour cards, and keep two months' salary each time they go on vacation.
"We know that it's against the law to hold such demonstrations but we are desperate and helpless. Each of us has paid more than 4,000 dirhams (around 1,100 U.S. dollars) just to get our initial employment visa and are still repaying our loans for that," he said miserably.
Harilal's group is not the only one protesting; over the past few weeks three other groups of workers have approached the ministry with the same problems.
Government authorities have swung into action as well. As many as 1,038 companies have been blacklisted by the Ministry of Labour for breaking labour laws in Dubai and the Northern Emirates between Jan. 1 and November 2003.
An official at the Labour Inspection Department said that the companies had been blacklisted for committing various offences such as employing workers who were sponsored by others and failure to pay workers regularly. There were also companies that were shut down for keeping workers on their sponsorship even though they had moved on.
The plight of Harilal and his colleagues and the workers' rare public voice of protests has drawn a strong response from members of the public and officials.
Donations have been received from an anonymous Indian Red Cross volunteer with a promise to arrange more assistance from charity sources. Senior ministry officials have taken up the matter and have ordered staff at the Labour Relations Department to look into the matter and reach a settlement as soon as possible.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has also expanded its labour inspection section with the recruitment of more inspectors to control labour law violations.
Officials are also considering how to better monitor conditions in labour camps. For instance, there are even rules on the type of roofing at workers' homes. Buildings with a metal roof must be covered with a ceiling and insulating materials in accordance with approved standards.
Each worker should also be provided with a bed and a small cupboard, while other facilities should include an entertainment hall with a television set, water coolers, toilets, kitchens and a dining room. An employer may also be asked to build a mosque for Muslim workers if there is none nearby.
In a statement, Matar Humaid Al Tayer, minister of labour and social affairs, said that the ministry would ensure that all international rules on the provision of healthy accommodation and work environment would be met. "We will monitor companies and ensure their abidance by workers' rights as provided for in the fundamental ILO conventions signed by the UAE," he said.
These include the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. (END/Copyright IPS)
