Dubai labours on

It?s unfortunate that authorities in Dubai sat on a crisis that was clearly building up for a while.

It’s unfortunate that authorities in Dubai sat on a crisis that was clearly building up for a while. The hundreds of Asian workers, who smashed cars and offices on the building site of what is proposed to be the world’s tallest skyscraper last week, were angered by low salaries and mistreatment by their employers — an issue the Dubai government should have addressed long ago. The violence, which caused more than $ 1 million in damage, underlines the growing unrest among foreign workers in Dubai, mostly immigrants from the subcontinent, living in cramped labour camps on construction sites.

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Three quarters of Dubai’s 1.5 million residents are immigrants, and many are construction workers helping the emirate realise its desert dream: a building boom that could probably be hardest hit by these riots. Although a rare instance of violence, it was preceded by several signs of discontent among the immigrant workforce that powers the private sector in most oil-rich Gulf countries. Apart from the recent labour unrest in Qatar and Oman, workers from Bangladesh stormed their own embassy in Kuwait earlier this year, protesting ‘slave-like’ working conditions. The Dubai government seems to have ignored the strife building up of late as workers resorted to several major strikes demanding their rights and pay, which is sometimes withheld. Last September, they staged a protest march, triggering off a national debate about the mistreatment of foreign workers. These people evidently have few rights as visa sponsors and employers confiscate their passports and residency permits during recruitment, restricting their freedom of movement and the ability to report abuse. Token efforts by the UAE’s Ministry of Labour to tackle the problem by allowing workers to change employers more easily and imposing strict penalties on employers who do not pay workers have apparently failed.

Maybe it’s time New Delhi took a proactive stand and had legal cells in every embassy to offer assistance. Better still, India could become co-signatory to contracts signed abroad, which would protect the legitimate rights of people like domestic servants and unskilled workers not covered by labour laws.