Dubai's Asian labourers demand higher wages

[Naveed Yaseen]

DUBAI (September 01 2009): Hundreds of migrant workers in Dubai took to the streets Monday, demanding higher wages and overtime pay from their employer, the company which built the emirate's landmark sail-shaped Gulf shore hotel. The rally of Asian labourers employed by Dubai's development giant Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises LLC was the first public display of labour discontent since Mideast's former boomtown was hit by the economic crisis last year.

The labourers, now working on building an extension of a shopping mall in Dubai's Diera district and a convention center in the city's Jabal Ali industrial zone, said their pay wasn't enough to survive on and support their families back home in Southeast Asia.

``We are demanding over time (pay) or a raise in salaries,' said a protester from Pakistan, who identified himself as Mohammed al-Raoub, an Arab name. Workers on strike here are usually reluctant to give their real names, fearing reprisals.

He said he earns 700 dirhams ($US190) a month and has not been paid overtime for a while. ``I can barely manage to survive and send money to my family,' he said. Habtoor representatives were not immediately available for comment. Rights groups have long criticised labour abuse in the oil-rich Gulf and Dubai, which has depended on low-wage Asian migrants to build its skyscrapers and artificial islands.

The Emirates government recently took steps to improve workers' living conditions and ensure regular monthly payments, but low and often delayed paychecks remain a problem for the Asian migrants, whose complaints have not resonated with cash-strapped employers in debt-sunk Dubai. Dozens of development projects have been cancelled, postponed or delayed since the global economic downturn hit this former Gulf boomtown.

Al Habtoor Engineering is part of the Al Habtoor Leighton Group. Since its establishment in 1970, Al Habtoor Engineering became a leading construction and engineering company in the Mideast, building hotels, residential and commercial towers, universities, shopping malls and airports across the region.

Their projects include the Dubai International Airport and the city's two landmark hotels: the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel and the neighbouring wave-shaped Jumeirah Beach Hotel. The company is currently building a branch of the Paris Sorbonne University in UAE's capital Abu Dhabi.

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