@redbigbananafeet
How do you feel looking at the Indian construction workers that are essentially modern day slaves?
I dont condone it and nor do I accept it.
It's worth noting first that most workers are not treated as badly as the press would have you believe.
-- Yes, the wages are low, but you have to look at this relatively - what they earn in a month pays for their own living costs plus allows them to send more home to their families than they would even earn that month at home. Yes, it would be good to pay them more to let them have a nicer life but there is an argument for not doing so - for example, if they were to be paid the equivalent of British wages you'd literally create a false market economy as you would have thousands of low skilled workers sending the equivalent of untold riches home to tiny villages in India each month. Most workers get free accommodation as well as their wages and the vast majority also get health insurance.
-- There are also rules as to how many hours a day they can work in summer and how long their lunch breaks etc must be. My husband works in this industry and says that the majority of companies do adhere to these rules. Very few of these workers are in the situations that most people would describe as "slavery" - for those that are there are lots of people trying to sort this out and to end the practices that cause it.
-- many of these workers come to Dubai because no matter what you might think about their wages or circumstances, the accommodation and pay remains better than wherever they live. If these options arent open to them, their families starve - there isnt enough work elsewhere or good enough wages for them.
What is your solution if you don't agree with all of this?
It's so interesting that Dubai gets so much stick for this because most of the Middle East is worse - the practices on the stadium builds for the Qatar world cup are not what goes on here, for example.
Further, people always conveniently ignore other areas and other groups of people when they bring out the construction worker concerns. I would like to point out that I saw significantly worse treatment of migrant Chinese construction workers and, even more so, foreign domestic helpers from the Philippines and Indonesia, in Singapore. I also lived in Hong Kong years ago and saw the same terrible treatment there. The stories I could tell you of how people treat these poor women... they sleep on boards on top of cookers because they arent given a bedroom, they get their wages docked because a child breaks an ipad, their paid far less than Dubai's construction workers, they don't get a proper day off, etc etc.
We have domestic helpers here in Dubai too and I'm sure the same bad treatment goes on here too but i'm always so surprised that people who whip out the arguments about human rights and construction workers never seem to know about the domestic workers or that it goes on in SO MANY other places too.
These issues arent Dubai issues - they are worldwide issues. They need solving but paying wages that aren't in proportion or properly relative or ending these types of employment entirely arent the answer.