Migrant workers: Time to rethink

A United Nations-sponsored conference highlights key issues in the labour migration process including the absence of a minimum wage, too much dependence on remittances and the need to do away with the sponsorship system.

A fortnight ago, Construction Week was invited to contribute, by way of a small presentation, about realities on the ground in the Gulf, to a UN-sponsored conference on the financial crisis in the Gulf, and its impact on South East Asian migrants.

The event was held in Kerala’s city of Thiruvananthapuram in India, also once famous for being the source of the majority of unskilled and semi-skilled construction labourers coming to the GCC.

Many other labour sending countries have since joined the human-resource race, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

The main concern raised at the conference by the Kerala government was the drop in remittances coming into the country from these workers, and ways in which this could be revived.

For years, the world has looked on, often in dismay, at the plight of construction workers in the Middle East– especially during the boom years– and the refusal of their governments to extend the support that is expected of any government towards its citizens.

But now, as the economic crisis has tightened its grip on India’s remittance artery, desperate measures are being sought to keep these very workers from rightfully returning to their home country.

The meeting came after the World Bank reported that remittances to developing countries are expected to decline by 7.3% this year.

“Remittances provide a life-line for the poor in developing countries – an essential source of reserves, as well as a stabilising force for the economy in turbulent times,” said Irudaya Rajan, professor at the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala.

“With so many construction workers losing their jobs in the GCC, some say the figure is about 30,000, it has affected the rate of remittances coming into the country.”

Strangely, the impact of the crisis on guest workers in the GCC seems to have found importance in the eyes of the Indian government only now, when it is threatened with a decrease in remittances, which in turn, will affect its national GDP.

“The crisis has only exposed the heavy reliance of the Indian government on its migrant workforce,” said Boyko Atanasov, country programme director for Qatar, UAE and Yemen, Solidarity Centre – a US-based workers rights body.

“The sudden attention given to migrant workers, now that there’s a threat to the national GDP, amazes me. The Indian government didn’t do much to make their conditions better or insist on a minimum wage during the boom years, but now when it suits its own interest, it is trying to forge solutions to keep workers in their jobs, so that remittances don’t suffer.”

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