Migrant Workers in the ME
For the locals here in the ME, do you think that we will ever wean ourselves off of cheap foreign skilled and unskilled labor?
For myself- as a business owner, I have made a choice of doing the work that is needed myself for a few reasons, such as keeping my overhead down, lack of certified professionals in the business I run (tuning performance cars; building racing engines and chassis and customizing mid- to high-end vehicles) and lastly, not wanting to further perpetrate the use of laborers from south/southeast Asia. Even in my villa, I don’t have domestic help (I’m a single guy; I do my own cooking and cleaning and chores) with the exception of a yard man (his yard services came with the villa; not full time).
I’d like to hear your feelings on the use of foreign manual labor, as well as skilled professionals.
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I am not a big fan of cheap labor as well as the way South Asian migrant workers are generally treated in the Middle East – I expressed a lot of my views on this issue here, here, here and here.
I admire your work ethics, I think too many people in the ME (especially in the Gulf) take advantage of cheap and unfair labor. You can check out many human rights abuses here.
You should also read this -
Female domestic workers living under the Kafala system in GCC states.
I am so surprised that very few NGOs are targeting this issue. Their conditions in the ME is a serious crime against humanity.
It is the reliance on foreigners to do many of the things that a normal person can and should do that makes it so pitiful. When you have a family that can take a domestic servant in, and that very same family cannot even support themselves, then something is definitely wrong. It shows me that the price to take a servant is very very cheap, and that the work that people used to do has been categorized as the work of servants. There is danger in it. As for myself, I am a foreigner, but I chose to stay here and make my future on conditions that do not take away something from another person either local or foreign. I have a trade and a skill that I have been fine tuning and is welcomed by Bahraini who appreciate it. I will continue to do my work alone until I have a brother here who is willing to learn the art and not rely on cheap unskilled labor, for it is an art that requires study and a way that cannot be learned with books alone. I am not a master, but a student. If I am blessed by Allah’s grace, I will pass this on to a future son or daughter born here who is Bahraini, and with it the moral ethics of honest work and honest money.
I have read of the abuses suffered by south and southeast Asians at the hands of black hearted people here, as well as by the very ethnic stock who have been here for generations and have made a place for themselves as upper crust of society. I do not know which is more evil, but evil has no face. Again, this can only be overturned by eradicating little by little the stranglehold and the ruin caused by a system once thought convenient and lucrative. The trouble is, the system has now become the master and the very people who have initiated it now have descendents who have become lazy, conceited and dumbed down.
Just got through reading the previous blogs and posts on this issue. I think first and foremost, the quotas of laborers from the countries known to export manual laborers to the GCC needs to be curbed. That can only happen from within their own countries. For as many host nation nationals who are guilty of abuse/promoting abuse, there are just as many slave traders from the exporting countries who are just as guilty, and some of these people are in government offices. With that, there needs to be laws enacted here that enforces who gets to work, which should be local nationals before looking outside for skill sets that are needed here. There needs to be a weaning off of the proverbial teat of cheap labor that can be bought for fils on the dinar. This requires enforcement from the government and government guaranteed rights to work for a fair and equitable salary for the work done. Yes, I hear it all the time that Bahraini locals are lazy, and I hear that from Bahrainis, BUT that can change with time and NEEDS to change. I hear it also from Bahraini who want to work and are willing to, that they are discriminated by human resources departments who will not even look at their CV because they know they can hire a Hindi or another south Asian for less money. These human resource departments are headed by, you guessed it, a Hindi or a Paki or a Bengali. They get into the system, gain the trust of the owners and then set up shop and discriminate against host nation locals. If you doubt me, check out Gulf Air. That needs to stop by government enforced regulations and spot inspections on companies that hire south Asians or other foreign nationals. As for me, I brought in my own money, and I won’t hire anybody other than a local if I need to hire anybody. I will outsource my work to people I know on an as needed basis, and these businesses have south Asian artisans. Anyway, we have a long way to go, Esra’a. It needs to happen not only locally, but also in the nations these people are from. Yes, I understand that life here for these folks is oftentimes much better than what they had back home, but we must do what we can do. I’ll even propose giving preferential treatment and contracts for civil projects to businesses that have a majority host nation work force, but yeah, I know that isn’t gonna get anywhere when people within our government have businesses run by majority south Asians. Anyway, if you need my help, you know how to contact me.
I am pretty shocked by what I’ve seen in Jordan, a poor country hiring even poorer people to do labor that their own (unemployed) people deem beneath them, such as clean homes, take care of children, do manicures, build new structures. And then they abuse them and look down their noses at people who are putting in a more than honest day’s work in an attempt to feed their babies back home. The whole situation there is just heartbreaking all the way around.
I think there is far more dignity in putting in an honest day’s work than in sitting back, doing nothing, not taking proper care of your responsibilities, yet criticizing others who are only trying to do the best they can with what they’ve been given. And this whole notion of a caste system, of relegating the subcontinental immigrants to some deeply inferior status, is just beyond decent or humane.
ERS- What you describe is exactly what I am talking about. It’s not only that they have deemed it beneath them, but they have simply forgotten how to do most of the jobs described. What do you think would happen if suddenly, there appeared a subcontinent person with charisma, someone who has been in the ME for decades, who stirs up subcontinent sentiment amongst those who are here in the ME against their employers? Maybe far-fetched…. maybe not. For every one host nation national, you probably have 10-15 subcontinent individuals in the host nation. Go even deeper… how many Shia’a do you think are among them? Get a Shia’a of the ME who can think on a grander scale and see the strength that could be gathered with an alliance, and what do you have? I do not have anything against Shia’a, and I have better things to do than to think of some kind of revolt and otherthrow, but if you study history, you can see some of the present were symptoms that were present in the past revolts and revolutions.
As a longtime union member and serving shop steward for my local, I can tell you that the “enlightened” nations of the West also suffer from this malady. Even with decades of labour laws, collective agreements, whole government departments created for this issue, every time I have to mediate between a worker and a manager I get the whole “you are lucky to have this job, so just shut up and put up with whatever abuse I feel like dishing out” attitude. And when, luckily, I can sometimes get a member a fair shake at a Labour Board hearing, the manager who was proven in error looks stricken, as if I had taken away a precious right of theirs to ignore the law, the contract they signed, and basic human respect. It seems to be a psychic disease common to all cultures that the dollar value of labour equals the degree of dignity afforded to those who perform it. Sadly, with the ever-increasing population base, the finite limits of land and resources, and the pervasevness tendency of societies to organize classes based on material wealth, this illness will probably spread. It does seem kind of ironic coming out of the ME, though…I mean, quite a bit of the character of our fiscal society is based on hard-nosed Protestant “work yourself to death” principles, with all the abuses that potentially gives, but the “all peoples are equal, fairness & justice” aspect of Islam should offer deep seated barriers to this kind of thing, shouldn’t it?
Eric, you are definitely right in your observations, for it is not just isolated to the ME, but to many areas of the world, including the traditional industrial nations. Islam is one thing, but the sickness and the disease of slavery is a human thing. A true Muslim can see the difference, but we have just as many people who profess Islam, but that is just a facade they carry. It’s their hearts that will reveal who they really are. The same goes for every religion, and yes, this is a worldwide disease that inflicts everybody regardless of what faith or lack of they say they follow.
No excuses should be made for the ill-treatment of migrant workers. Yes, it’s not just a problem in the Middle East, but diverting attention elsewhere isn’t solving the problem in the Middle East specifically. And if I hear anyone give the “oh but they’re so much better off than if they were back home in India”, I’ll be most annoyed, find out where you live and smack you ’round the back of the head!
Having grown up in the UAE and having been ashamed to witness the abuse of migrant workers, I am delighted to hear of the birth of the concept of unionizing the work forces there. It’s not a cure-all, but it’s a start.
Regarding skilled vs unskilled… Wouldn’t shelling out more for higher skilled labor pay off in the fact that the quality of the product would be higher, without having to pay for repairs/back tracking to fix mistakes made by lesser skilled labor?
My greatest concern was that in the ME, they didn’t even pretend to be sympathetic to the cause of the abused workers. It was practically a given that they were of a lesser species and no one questioned the status quo because they all benefited from it in one way or another.
Should we wean away from their use? Not necessarily. I always believe in hiring the best person for the job, regardless of race, sex, religion etc. You can choose to hire the lesser skilled, cheaper option, and you get what you pay for. It’s your choice, but as long as the rights of the worker aren’t violated and the pay is at or above an established minimum wage.
TeacherLady, I don’t wanna get smacked in the back of the head, and bringing up the issue of unionization is a good start. I agree that if one invests in a higher skilled labor force, the dividends are seen with less unplanned outlays of cashflow to make up for the mistakes or the inferior workmanship of a lesser skilled force. That’s only good business sense. As for reducing the dependency on foreign labor, that needs to happen for various reasons- giving your own citizens the chance to compete in the labor market, the standard of living increases because now you have to pay a salary that is not slave labor wages, less internal hostilities against the government, and if anything, a sense of pride (color it any way you please). I am totally against the hiring practices of big companies whose human resources department is run by someone who is not even a host national, who blatantly does not give a host national a chance to work and is quite happy with importing more foreign labor for fils on the dinar. There needs to be enforceable quota controls, and yes, if there isn’t a qualified host national to do the job, then import the skill if they are qualified and have demonstrated their abilities (six month probation) before they are given 2 year work visas.
As for the mistreatment of any person, regardless of where he or she is from, is uncalled for and not justifiable. Yes, I am the master of the obvious here, but I firmly believe that to tackle the problem of inhumane treatment here, it has to be tackled one objective at a time. Enforceable quota controls and skill set evaluation and fair chance at work for host nationals is a good start.
Dawoud, in theory your idea sounds fine, but then you get instances of abuse of position (ie. race). My father was a lovely man, but a chronic alcoholic who hardly made it to work at all, yet he was permitted to keep his job while this poor Indian guy did all his work for him. When they finally recognized that years of not showing up = not really working for your employer, they didn’t give the Indian guy the job, they gave it to another “national”. Affirmative action shouldn’t overshadow all reason. If nothing else, migrants who have poured their souls into the country should be given the opportunity to become a citizen of the country and enjoy the benefits they deserve.
Don’t worry, the back of your head is relatively safe from my hand.
Somewhere in my writing, I am trying to say to give the jobs to the best qualified, and that means day to day performance and other ethical and moral intents, as well. That being said, I agree with you that if a person who has sacrificed everything and is really the glue that holds the organization together and what is really the success behind a company, he or she should be given the rights and responsibility of citizenship, if they would want to take it. I agree with you 100%
Thanks for not whacking me.