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Expat labour rights
posted by
Vivek Sharma
09 Apr 2008, 18:37
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labels: politics, labour
When you don’t have many options, you will be willing to suffer more than a bit of injustice and rights violations to earn a living. This fundamental vulnerability exposes all labourers to some form of exploitation or the other.
For many decades, Indian workers have been chasing the Middle East dream. The significantly higher wages for unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the Gulf countries attracted millions of Indians, who paid hefty amounts to procure a visa. There are many who pledged all they had to raise money for the visa, but were cheated and saw their dreams destroyed. At last count, there were over 5 million Indians in the Gulf countries doing unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. That excludes the white-collar workers and professionals.
The Gulf countries were always a tough environment to survive for expat labourers, who mostly came from South Asia and Philippines. Working conditions were highly demanding and a good number of them lived in empty shipping containers, always at the mercy of the employer. Their passports were always under the custody of employers, making it impossible to shift jobs or even leave their jobs.
Hardly anyone complained as they earned enough to make them feel rich when they went home once every few years. The wages of one labourer was enough to ensure a comfortable living for his family back home. Above all, most of these labourers had no other choice.
But, that is changing and changing fast. The fast economic growth in India has led to a shortage of construction workers. Big builders like DLF are trying to bring back the workers from Gulf countries. As infrastructure investments increase, there will be more employers chasing these workers. Most significantly, the domestic wages for experienced construction workers now equal, if not exceed Gulf wages.
Now that they are in demand, expat workers in Gulf countries have started demanding better pay and living conditions. Probably for the first time, there has been labour unrest in some of these countries in recent months. Local governments were initially a bit heavy-handed in their approach and deported some of the workers. They were more accommodative when they realised that the protests could spread and become an even bigger problem.
Increasingly confident of its status as an emerging economic power, the Indian government also threw its weight behind the expat workers. The Indian government is now exerting diplomatic pressure on Gulf countries to fix minimum wages for daily workers.
Not surprisingly, the Gulf countries are now more receptive to these demands. Record oil prices have fuelled an unprecedented construction boom in these countries. They need these workers as it is not quite easy to replace them with cheaper workers from other sources like Africa. Even if they manage to do so, the cost differentials may not be worth the effort. Besides, Indian workers have built their own ecosystem in these countries and no longer feel alien. It maybe easier for these Gulf countries to continue relying on Indian workers, even if that means granting them more rights and facilities. These governments may also have to ensure better enforcement of labour rights as employers in these countries pay scant regard to such rights.
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