News Briefs

Workers strike in Dubai: goverment to expel 'lawbreakers'

Nov 15, 2007 3:01 PM

Some 4,000 South Asian construction workers were interned after taking to the streets of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, in late October after protesting poor wages, bad living conditions and a lack of transportation to work sites. Protests were staged at a labor camp and on a construction site in a residential neighborhood.

Many of the manual workers who laid down their tools and occupied a building were accused of vandalism and of stoning police and vehicles. Authorities threatened to deport those taking part in the strike who refused to go back to work and said they will deport any convicted of “violence.” The country’s labor minister called the workers’ behavior “uncivilized.” Human Rights Watch, however, has long criticized working conditions in Dubai.

Strikes are illegal in the Emirates, as are unions, and residency is only offered to those holding a current job contract, no matter how long they reside in the country. Some 700,000 South Asians work as contract construction workers in the UAE. Just one in five of the country’s four million residents are citizens. Dubai boasts a building boom and suffers from a labor shortage, yet wages have not kept up with living costs.

Amnesty International, in a 2006 report, said the nation’s construction boom was due solely to “wage exploitation, indebtedness to recruiters and working conditions that are hazardous to the point of being deadly.”

Agence France Press, Oct. 30

The News (Pakistan), Nov. 1

London Telegraph, Oct. 31