For the first time that I know of, Desi (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan) workers in Dubai have gone on strike to protest low wages and working conditions. After years of systematic exploitation, it’s about time.

The boom has been possible due to plentiful investment from oil-rich neighbors and armies of non-unionized south Asian workers whose fear of deportation, until recently, kept them from voicing discontent over low wages.

“The cost of living here has increased so much in the past two years that I cannot survive with my salary,” said Rajesh Kumar, a 24-year-old worker from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who earns $149 a month.

The laborers ignored the threat of deportation and refused to go to work, staging protests at a labor camp in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Industrial Zone and on a construction site in Al Qusais residential neighborhood. They demanded pay increases, improved housing and better transportation services to construction sites. On Saturday, workers threw stones at the riot police and damaged to police cars.

Emirates’ Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi described workers’ behavior as “uncivilized,” saying they were tampering with national security and endangering residents’ safety. (link)

Uncivilized? In my view, what’s uncivilized is when you’re making billions and your workers (nearly 2 million of them) are forced to live in prison-like conditions for $149 a month. When they have limited civil and legal rights, and are forcibly segregated from the native population. And when you have laws on the books that prevent them from organizing in any way that might lead to a better situation for themselves.

The era when South Asian workers were desperate to go abroad to try and make a little money under these circumstances seems to be gradually ending, and many in Dubai are more than ready to walk away, especially with a growing economy at home, and the UAE’s Dirham linked to a falling dollar:

Companies, however, do not want more workers to leave as they struggle to find enough to complete existing projects following an overwhelming response to a government amnesty program to persuade illegal laborers to leave.

In June, the government offered, no questions asked, a free one-way plane tickets to illegal workers hoping to leave. They have since been swamped by 280,000 workers who, fed up with a rising cost of living and low wages, were ready to go home. (link)

280,000 are ready to go home right now (NB: they can only go home if the UAE allows them to do so).

It’s true, even if many of the Desis leave, others might be willing to take their place. But with one large reservoir of dirt cheap labor drying up, it sounds like the oasis of Dubai’s recent economic boom is starting to flicker. It may have always been a mere mirage — albeit one built with real sweat, and in some cases, blood. Continue reading →

One of the items that has been getting votes on the News Tab today is the IBN Live story (thanks, Raprasad) on The Gap’s decision to pull a contract with an Indian contractor that had been using bonded child laborers in horrific sweatshop conditions in Delhi. (By a strange irony, the clothes the children were working on happened to be destined for GapKids. Oy.) The decision by The Gap was prompted by an excellent article in the UK Observer, which was in turn the product of an undercover investigation. The part that bugged me in the IBN article came at the end of the following passage:

The Observer quoted the children as saying that they had been sold to the sweatshop in Delhi by their families. The children, some of who worked for as long as 16 hours a day sewing clothes by hand, said they hailed from Bihar and West Bengal. They added that they were not being paid because their employer said they were still trainees; nor would they be allowed to leave till they could repay the amount for which they were bought from their families.

When contacted, Gap gave the official statement that the sweatshop was being run by a sub-contractor. This is a violation of Gap’s policies, said the fashion giant.

Gap spokesman Bill Chandler was vocal in his thanks to the media. “We appreciate that the media identified this sub-contractor and we acted swiftly in this situation,” he told the Associated Press. “Under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments,” he added.

Correctness-conscious America is very strict about the use of child labour. (link)

That last sentence, “Correctness-conscious America is very strict…” got under my skin. Granted, there are different ways of looking at this particular issue; I know some people justify limited child labor under the argument that families living in extreme poverty need all the income they can get. In this case, however, the kids were effectively slave laborers sold off by their families — an arrangement that in my view can’t possibly be defensible.

The sentence above could also be defended along the lines that the reporter was merely explaining to a readership that may not be that strongly opposed to child labor why this is such a big deal. If that’s the case — that is, if the majority of English-speaking readers of Indian business newspapers and viewers of cable news are nonplussed by bonded child labor in their own backyards — I’m not angry, just sad. It’s not about “correctness-consciousness,” it’s about basic human rights, is it not?

See also: SAJA Forum. Continue reading →

After yesterday’s heavy post featuring the video footage from the masterminds of the Gujarat riots openly confessing their deeds, I thought today I would keep it light — only to find (thanks, Vishal) that the state government of Gujarat isn’t going to make it easy to do so.

Indeed, the state government has summarily blocked all three news channels that were going to show footage from Tehelka’s report. The affected channels are Aaj Tak, CNN-IBN, and IBN-7. The logic is a bit twisted, but somehow predictable:

Subsequently, all these channels went off air in most parts of Gujarat from 1930 hours (IST) on Thursday. The administration claimed it’s a violation of Clause 5 of Cable TV Network Regulation, which deals with broadcasting programmes which could create communal tension.

The state authorities accused the TV channels of spreading ‘more communal discord’ in the state than the people who actually featured on the Tehelka tapes.

For instance, the language used by leaders like Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt, Dhabal Patel and Madan Dhanraj in the tapes could easily turn the situation far more dangerous than what was being shown, they say. (link)

Obviously, the next step is to block channels that report that channels are being blocked, because that could also create seeds of dissent that could lead to communal tension. Right?

One point of confusion is who exactly is responsible for the order to black out the channels in question. The CNN-IBN article I linked to names the author of the order as “Ahmedabad District Magistrate and District Election Officer Dhananjay Dwivedi,” but also states that the Central Election Commission has “washed its hands,” saying it never issued any such order. I’m not really clear who has the real authority here — is Dhananjay Dwivedi’s action even legal?

I’m also a little puzzled as to why more news channels aren’t showing any of the footage. I checked Star News and NDTV (the two Indian news channels I get at home), and haven’t seen anything. I wonder: does Tehelka have an exclusive arrangement with these three channels, or have India’s other cable news channels made an editorial decision not to cover this? Continue reading →