Labour movement

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After being ushered into one of the conference rooms at Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi during the contractual labour forum last month, I was faced with my photographer and an empty chair.

I was there to meet the elusive UAE minister of labour, HE Dr Ali Abdulla Al Kaabi.

The offer of an exclusive interview with Construction Week had fortunately piqued his interest.

Known for his progressive and reformist attitude, the minister was educated at George Washington University in Washington DC.

He obtained a Doctor of Science Degree in Engineering Management and went on to work at the UAE Military Office as a computer network administrator, and later at the UAE Scholarship Office in Washington DC.

He took over the Ministry of Labour (MoL) in 2004 and immediately sent the authority into a frenzy when he ordered all ministry officials who had commercial licences to renounce them or resign, claiming that the practice of government servants having commercial licenses was an anomaly.

Compounding the turmoil was the influx of foreign labour that was being imported to fuel Dubai's massive construction boom, which could well go down in the UAE's history as being the most turbulent period, with some of the worst strikes and demonstrations that the country has ever experienced.

When Kaabi arrived, his demeanour was confident yet comfortingly in touch with reality.

He looked younger than one would imagine, which perhaps explains his need for change and his drive to steer the ministry into a new era.

With the rather dramatic labour situation in the UAE over the past few years, I was curious to know what the term ‘human rights' actually meant to the minister. He began his answer with the very traditional ‘Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim' (‘In the name of God the most merciful').

"I'll tell you exactly the challenges I was faced with. Firstly, we had to improve the ministry of labour internally; secondly we had to improve the laws and regulations within the UAE, and thirdly we had to take a look at what kind of issues the labour-sending countries and us faced so we could solve
them together.

Change begins within oneself and so Kaabi had to change the mindset of his own ministerial employees by getting them to think of the ministry as a private body and not as a governmental one.

"I wanted them to learn how to treat people as clients with good customer etiquette, so we had to bring in a change of attitude. We changed the environment and we changed how the system worked.

"Then we re-examined some of the rules and regulations and reopened the ‘transfer membership'. We said that if a person has a master's degree or higher, then they will be able to change sponsorship after a year.

If they have a bachelor's degree, then they can change sponsorship after two years. For an unskilled worker, a three-year period is required - this is because for an unskilled worker, the training curve is longer, so by the time they become skilled or semi-skilled a year or more would have passed, and that's when a sponsor would want to get a return on his investment.

The non-payment of workers' salaries has been a contentious issue in the UAE construction sector since the boom began, and Kaabi agrees that it is still an issue and is taken very seriously.

"There are three pillars that we insist on: Salaries have to be paid on time, accommodation should be according to the law and health insurance should be mandatory.

"Electronic salary payment is now compulsory. All salaries have to be paid through a bank or an exchange which have to link up with the MoL, which then allows us to monitor exactly when an employee gets paid and how much.

"Previously, it took us three months to get to know of defaults on payment; now it's immediate.

"Also, if a worker complains to labour relations that he hasn't been paid, and then we find that he hasn't been paid for two months, he has the right to transfer his sponsorship to another company without paying any fees.

The minister added that a pilot study was conducted in 2005 to identify what workers' housing should be like and that one massive labour camp had been set up in Abu Dhabi and another was to follow in Dubai followed by the other emirates.

A compulsory health insurance scheme, similar to the one implemented in Abu Dhabi in early 2007, would also be rolled out in Dubai and the northern Emirates this year.

But even though the health insurance is mandatory, some companies claim that it covers close to nothing and does not cover vital points such as onsite injuries.

Kaabi denies this: "If it doesn't then the company has to pay for it. It is in the law. It [on-site injuries] has to be covered. If not, the company is breaking the law and action will be taken.

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