A consulate of any purpose?
GN's 'Letters to the Editor' on the topic of 'minimum wages' brought in some interesting and hard hitting letters. Nowhere did we see any psychos terming this as a conspiracy, and every letter pointed to one thought in unison - you have to set minimum wages. No one is going to buy into the crap of negotiating their wages after they set foot here, with not more than a few thousand Rupees in hand. And how do illiterate workers negotiate anyway?
But what everyone forgot to write in was how the Indian Consulate also plays an important part. During recruitment, why does the consulate remain mum on the sorry state of affairs? Aren't the consulate supposed to educate workers regarding such problems? Is it too much to ask for the Indian bureaucracy to sort out a solution and nip the problem in the bud? Is the consulate here for it's members to play around electing some idiot year after year for bragging about their business dreams at some five star hotel to be later photographed and featured in...you guessed it right, GN itself?
Even though I cannot confirm, Sri Lanka has refused to send any more garment/textile workers because of the increasing problems with non payment of wages. The Sri Lankan consulate immediately remedied the situation.
People aren't thinking straight, or the newspaper doesn't favour their thinking.
posted by archer14 @ 3:02 PM
7 Comments:
Thanks for raising this. I won't repeat the moral and economic arguments published in GN, but here are my thoughts in response to your blog.
The more I see how 'bachelors', having left everything and everyone that matters to them behind, begin life here in debt to 'agencies'; are packed into accommodation as if they had no more sensibility than shoes on a rack; are paid a pittance and frequently denied this if it suits their employers; are treated as invisible or insensible by many of the more privileged (i.e. educated) residents they clean up after in malls; work outdoors in blazing sun, high humidity, strong winds and blowing sand; are denied affordable transport (Sharjah's bicycle law); are denied access to the parks which are the only pleasant places they can socialise in on their day off (Sharjah again); and are regarded as intrusive by beach sunbathers (Dubai) and as criminals by neighbours (Dubai again); the more I wonder that the crime rate, depression rate and suicide rate is not higher; and why there is no sustained campaign in their home countries to warn them of the realities of life here?
And what are the consulates doing for these people? I have seen the UAE Ministry of Labour posters about labour rights on the sides of work buses, with contact phone numbers to report problems. I appreciate that the Ministry of Labour now recognises that most strikers are desperate people with genuine longterm grievances they are individually powerless to address, and is at last cracking down on abusive employers.
Not before time.
I accept and applaud that this is a young country that has achieved astonishing things in a few decades.
But given the rate of development here, and the huge number of ill-educated or barely literate human beings whose only chance of springing their children from the poverty trap is to leave their own country and culture, everything that makes life bearable, to do long hours of hard labour in the UAE for years on end - surely these people deserve their own champion? Surely, since their lack of education and connections leaves them open to exactly the sort of exploitation, abuse and disregard we routinely see here, and which the UAE has begun to tackle internally, then their consulates, staffed by their educated compatriots and headed by men and women of status, diplomatic experience and influence, should be actively representing their rights and interests to the Ministry?
These are not illegal immigrants, but a vast legitimate workforce contributing to the wealth of this country. If the time comes when 600Dhs a month is eaten up by inflation, with nothing left for the family back home, and nothing here but years of servitude to try and repay relocation costs - what then? What are the social and economic costs of widespread despair? And if these people quietly take the cliched advice – if you don’t like it, go home – are we so sure that there will be waves of replacements at Immigration?
Employers are – quite naturally – driven by profit margins, and rarely pay better wages or provide more benefits than they absolutely have to. Employees rarely secure improvements without collective bargaining. Uneducated workers are always at the bottom of the pile. Until this country permits unions, the deserving but powerless poor need active representation.
So what are the consulates doing?
Me again. Reading over that I realise that I've focused entirely on the male workforce, probably because they are the most visible.
Women workers frequently work in caring or ancillary jobs in homes and nurseries. Which makes them invisible. As long as their employers are decent and honourable, as many are, there's no problem.
But who will help the young woman whose passport is in the safe, whose employer arbitrarily deducts 'fines' before handing over a pay cheque, who pays late or in installments which may or may not be up to date by the end of any given month? Will her two or three equally miserable co-workers go and stand up to the boss with her? Will they insist on back wages and threaten to withdraw their labour and go to the Ministry unless they are paid what they are owed? Will they in fact pop down to the Ministry for a chat over a cup of chai and a doughnut, confident that the understanding official, who is of course as fluent in their language as they are in his (hers?)will come straight back with them and persuade their employer of the error of her ways? Who can the invisible turn to?
We have seen the awful stories of garment workers locked in at work and at 'home', denied proper A.C., sanitation and healthcare, fined for illness and misdemeanors,or not paid for months on end. We know what some maids have suffered. This is certainly visible.
The trouble is that it usually takes the intervention of outsiders - neighbours alerted by a stinking dumpster outside an overcrowded villa or sounds of weeping from locked windows - to attract attention. How long might that take?
And then what? A flight home with no savings. How pitiful.How absolutely pitiful.
But at least those women go home alive. How many maids don't?
And is that little housemaid confident that rape by an employer will not somehow turn into seduction of an employer, occasioning free accommodation for a fixed term, a delivery in handcuffs, bonus exfoliation afterwards and a free trip home?
The mechanisms are in place to protect workers'rights. But the vulnerable don't know their rights: that's part of their vulnerablity.
And it takes confidence to deal with officialdom, even when you're an educated professional with a proper contract which you signed without help. Housemaids are not noted for their kick-ass confidence.
Isolated women workers need to know that their consulate is their for them, proactive on their behalf. Consulates do follow up the abuses and deaths that make the headlines. But while rights are limited, and expatriate women work out of sight and out of mind, preventive work is needed.
Consultation with the powers that be, to encourage positive and appropriate policy and practice on workers' rights, and a minimum wage. Yesyesyesyesyes!
And a properly focused community outreach programme ensuring that individuals know their rights, who to turn to if these are abused, and - most importantly - that they will be listened to with compassion, and the primary assumption that their claims are valid.
As they say, prevention is better than cure. At least that's what I think.
i think it's a two edged sword..they are trying to import part of their problem overseas...they might be getting peanuts here...much better than getting nothing back home and creating unnecessary "social problems" for the incumbent government!
@mamaduck.
Brilliantly put, exploitation of female workers began far before male workers were exploited. The issues are in the limelight because there isn't money flowing in the system. No one has any cash to pay in the first place and with the increasing pace of development, management at the higher level refuse to budge an inch. They still have their Saturdays off and even bigger cars and bonuses. However female workers have always had it the hard way, and more often than not nothing gets reported until one is practically murdered. There is little a consulate can do when everything has been done. But as of now, the consulate doesn't want to do anything, even if it's reported right from the beginning. But let me tell you that the Indian consulate is the worst of the lot.
@Balck feline, I have to disagree.
The problem of workers has now increased all of a sudden because real development has shifted from Dubai, which is why they aren't paid. Real development has shifted to their home countries. Isn't it easy to see, everyone swallows the UAEs work visa permits and its mundane laws just because they're paid extra. Now that they aren't paid anything, they just want to be left alone to take up their own path. Times running out, they have kith and kin on the verge of poverty and here they are, passports in some safe somewhere and being threatened with deportation though they'll never be deported.
The consulate of Philippines and other South East Asian countries have stopped sending women to Kuwait to work as maids due to the high number of cases of abuse suffered at the hands of their employers.
Plus, before arrival, they are given a brief on how to go about if the employer harasses you. Their consulate is very supportive.
India is economically much stronger than these economies. So why can they not educate their people about it?
Mamaduck has addressed the situation succinctly.
But everytime I get heartburn over these issues as I read them and sometime experience them on a first hand basis ( ie the school fees dileema) all I can acheive is a few arbitrarily rants or comments at the dinner table.
Despite it being a matter of welfare for their own children, no one is willing to unite and make demands on schools.
I recently read an article where the whole town decided to close down all businesses and shops in order to support an issue. I cant remember where that was.
There is a popular myth that when Marie Antoinette was told that the French peasantry was starving because they did not have "bread to eat", she responded by saying that they should "eat cake".
Thats pretty much the situation here now isnt it.
The cup of a coffee is the cost of a whole meal for a poor man. What will he eat? what will he save?
But the rich keep getting richer and everyone who can do something sirt around tables in expensive hotels having seminars. Where a bottle of water, a juice,and very expensive crystal glasses decide the faith of some poor bastard.
But nothing happens. The rents go up some more basic necessities cost dearly, and a roof on the head has become a cashmere coat. Landlords do not want them sharing accomodation. where will they go? You cannot share a taxi, thats illegal.You cant depend on a pick/drop facility thats illegal, you cannot do any extra work in the evenings because having more than 1 job is illegal.
What then is legal? SUV's, designer apparel,and ordering massive meals and nibbling on them and leaving it all to waste.
Interesting site. Useful information. Bookmarked.
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