View Single Post
Old 01-05-2010, 10:00 AM   #1 (permalink)
dlish
Currently sour but formerly Dlishs
 
dlish's Avatar
 
Super Moderator
Location: Australia/UAE
Cheap Asian Labour

ive been prompted to start this thread after nomcat posed the question in a different forum here in TFP.

cheap unskilled labour from usually india, pakistan, afghanistan, china and the phillipines make up the majority of the population here in Dubai. around 80% of the population come from these countries, although not all are cheap labour. some are skilled and semi skilled, others are professionals, engineers, doctors etc.

labourers however get next to nothing compared to the western expats who earn big tax free bucks (depending which country you hail from). the lines are drawn based on what passport you hold. regardless of the experience you have or the position you hold. had i held a lebanese passport instead of an australian one, id be getting a third of what i currenly get.


is it fair? is it morally right? it really depends on which side of the fence yo stand on.

heres some pro's of the situation from a company's POV

the labourers get fed or get a food and gas allowance
the labourers get company accomodation
they get tickets back home every 24 months
they get uniforms and laundry service
they work for anywherebetween 1-2 USD an hour (about 100USD /week)
cheap labour which is good for construction costs
they earn more than they do back home and are able to support up to 10 family members back home on a basic wage



here are the cons


- living quarters are usually crowded and up to 10 people live in a room
- they dont earn enough money to enjoy activities outside of work except backyard cricket
- they live away from home with no access to women and give women are hard time in the street
- cheap labour means inefficient workers. what one good tradesman could do in a day you'd need 2-4 labourers, this elimating the cost savings of the cheap labour.


from a monetary viewpoint, you could justify the cheap labour. from a human rights viewpoint, the UAE's been under intense worldwide scrutiny.

what do you think? if you ran a company, would you utilise cheap labour?
if you ran an IT business would you get a call centre in india to do your work for the sake of saving $?
__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy
dlish is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360