The Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is the world’s tallest tower at 512 meters. Recently, it passed Tapai 101 at 508 meters. The construction is ahead of schedule and still has another year and a half of construction. It is being built by a migrant force of 4,000 Indians. The final completed height of the building is rumored to be around 700 meters tall. Dubai has been growing at a tremendously rapid pace, because of the rising prices of oil. As the oil has increased, it has poured money into United Arab Emirates, making it is the central business hub of the Gulf Region.
The rapid growth of the United Arab Emirate region has created thousands of jobs for construction workers. In response to the surplus in jobs, Dubai has responded by opening itself to many migrant construction workers, especially from South Asia, to fill the void. However, since the workers are not United Arab Emirate citizens, they have not been protected by the government. For example at the Burj Dubai, the 4,000 Indians have been working round-the-clock shifts in the brutal Dubai summer heat. Also, the workers have no set minimum wages.
Human Rights Watch created a publication on the topic, “Building Towers, Cheating Workers: Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in the United Arab Emirates.” The report shows the slave-like conditions of the migrant worker. For example, the average salary of the construction worker in 2006 was $106-$250 dollars a month, whereas the nation average salary for a person in the UAE, including the migrant workers, was $2,106 dollars a month. The workers are being paid less than 10% of the typical salary for the country. Also, it is common for employers to engage in “security” practices to ensure that workers do not quit such as withholding monthly salaries and denying the workers access to their passports. The migrants work in poor conditions, causing premature deaths of the workers. In 2005, 880 corpses of construction workers were returned to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh alone.
The government has not protected the migrant construction workers. In 1980, the UAE passed a law requiring the passage of a minimum wage, however, a law has never been passed complying with the regulation. Also, the law does not allow a worker to accept a job at a rival company without the consent of his current employer, further tying down workers to bad jobs. Additionally, the workers cannot assemble themselves into unions to create leverage to force employers to pay them, but instead, the workers who strike will be deported home. The government has forced employers to pay back wages, yet have not yet publicly penalized an employer for withholding wages, giving the employers no disincentive to treating the workers badly.
The workers need to be protected by the government. They are a necessary resource for the UAE to continue to develop into the business capital of the Gulf Region. The migrant construction workers must be given a minimum wage, and also more substantial rights to be able to protect themselves.
Al-Jazeera. Burj-Al Dubai ‘world’s tallest tower’. 21 July 2007.
Human Rights Watch. Building Towers, Cheating Workers: Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in the United Arab Emirates. November 2006.
Human Rights Watch. UAE:Worker’s Abused in Construction Boom. 12 November 2006.