Revolt stirs as Dubai aims high

Unrest spreads among hundreds of thousands of migrant workers toiling on vast construction projects

Rory McCarthy in DubaiWednesday

March 29, 2006 Guardian

At the heart of a vast construction site in the centre of Dubai is a cone-shaped building that is rising at the rate of one floor a week. When it opens in two years, the Burj Dubai - the flagship among a dozen lavish building projects in this boomtown emirate - will be the world's tallest skyscraper and home to a Giorgio Armani hotel. Lawns and trimmed hedges surround the site, along with seductive advertisements for apartments that promise "a tribute to fine living".

A few miles out in the desert is the Dubai that the tourists never see: the labour camps that house the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who build these skyscrapers. There are no lawns, hedges or dreamy adverts. Labourers, most from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, trapped into working here by crippling debts, sleep eight to a room and work long shifts for paltry wages and with no job security. They spend hours on bus trips to the sites each day, frequently go for months without pay, and are left penniless when contractors go bankrupt.

For the first time, years of accumulated frustration and resentment have now boiled over into a series of strikes and demonstrations. They began in September when 700 workers blocked a major road, complaining about poor salaries and bad conditions. That alone was remarkable in a country where public dissent is forbidden, and was a display of the mounting anger and despair among the migrant labourers.

At least eight other strikes and demonstrations followed at building sites across the emirate, culminating last week in a rare and violent protest at Burj Dubai. In one evening rampage, 2,500 workers downed tools and attacked security staff, broke into offices and smashed computers and files. They ran through the building complex damaging more than a dozen cars and construction equipment, and caused several hundred thousand pounds' worth of damage. The next day, workers at the site and other labourers working on the international airport went out briefly on strike.

The protests are growing more organised, and for the first time are challenging the image of Dubai as a peaceful and prosperous hub of investment in the Middle East. Similar protests have sprung up among migrant workers in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.

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