[roughly $1,450] to get to the UAE, but before that they often had to pay a broker to get to the agent. The main agencies are in Bangkok, but the secondary ones are in the provinces. You might have to pay much more. You might have to pay up to 15 percent interest a month if you’ve got no collateral to get a loan to pay the fee” (HRW, 2009).
Upon arrival, the workers are commonly in debt and quickly realize that wages are often 50 percent less than what they were promised. A Bangladeshi surveyor’s assistant working on Saadiyat Island said he paid an agency $2,900 in exchange for what he thought would be a good job in the UAE: “I sold land to pay for part of the agent’s fee, and had to take out a loan for the rest. The agency said I’d get a basic salary of 700 dirhams [roughly $190] per month, but when I got here my salary was only 350 dirhams [roughly $95]. When I first came here I was going to save money for a house, get married, have a child, but now, this isn’t really possible” (HRW, 2009).
One worker from Kerala, India, earns $260 a month on Saadiyat Island as a security guard—only 63.4 percent of what he was promised—and is fined if his wardrobe is not up to par: “The agency told me I’d get 1,500 dirhams [roughly $410] a month and Fridays off, but I don’t get any days off. And I get fined if my necktie isn’t tied right, or my socks are the wrong color—that’s 100 dirhams. I’ve been here for a year. When I got here, a bag of rice cost three dirhams, now it’s six. I could have earned more money if I’d stayed back home as a Maruti car salesman” (HRW, 2009).
Other workers simply do not receive pay. One worker from Bangladesh was assigned to build temporary housing on Saadiyat Island but has yet to receive payment: “I paid 250,000 taka [roughly $4,100] to the agency; I sold my land for 60,000 taka [roughly $1,000] and borrowed the rest. When we got to UAE, we signed four papers but they didn’t give any to us. First we waited for 14 days, but there was no work. We went for training for steel fixing for 10 days. We’ve been on the island for two months since then, and we still haven’t been paid” (HRW, 2009).
As with temporary work visa programs in the United States, foreign construction workers in the UAE depend on the sponsorship of a single company. Those workers who attempt to seek a better job elsewhere are subject to deportation and are banned from returning to the UAE for one year, except in cases in which the sponsor-employer failed to pay them for more than two months. The employer can trigger the deportation of a worker by simply requesting that the UAE ministries of labor and interior cancel the employee’s work permit and residence visa, rendering the employee illegal. Thus unscrupulous recruiters and employers can exploit workers with minimal consequences. Workers have few avenues of protection. While the UAE law prohibits employers from working with agencies that charge worker recruitment fees, UAE officials state that they will not intervene in cases of contract fraud committed by labor agencies outside the country (HRW, 2009).
It is common practice for employers in the UAE to confiscate worker passports. Although UAE law prohibits the confiscation of passports, it also provides an incentive for doing so: companies face heavy fines if they fail to request the government to cancel absconding workers’ visas. The accepted practice has been for employers to request the cancellation by turning in the workers’ passports to the Ministry of Interior. To prevent workers from leaving, companies inform them that they must pay a fine before their passports will be returned to them. This is what happened to a Nepali worker on Saadiyat Island:
We’d like to leave now, but the company said it would cost us a 2,000 dirham fine [roughly $540]. If we had left the UAE within two months, the company says we could’ve avoided the fine, because we were still on a temporary
Upon arrival, the workers are commonly in debt and quickly realize that wages are often 50 percent less than what they were promised. A Bangladeshi surveyor’s assistant working on Saadiyat Island said he paid an agency $2,900 in exchange for what he thought would be a good job in the UAE: “I sold land to pay for part of the agent’s fee, and had to take out a loan for the rest. The agency said I’d get a basic salary of 700 dirhams [roughly $190] per month, but when I got here my salary was only 350 dirhams [roughly $95]. When I first came here I was going to save money for a house, get married, have a child, but now, this isn’t really possible” (HRW, 2009).
One worker from Kerala, India, earns $260 a month on Saadiyat Island as a security guard—only 63.4 percent of what he was promised—and is fined if his wardrobe is not up to par: “The agency told me I’d get 1,500 dirhams [roughly $410] a month and Fridays off, but I don’t get any days off. And I get fined if my necktie isn’t tied right, or my socks are the wrong color—that’s 100 dirhams. I’ve been here for a year. When I got here, a bag of rice cost three dirhams, now it’s six. I could have earned more money if I’d stayed back home as a Maruti car salesman” (HRW, 2009).
Other workers simply do not receive pay. One worker from Bangladesh was assigned to build temporary housing on Saadiyat Island but has yet to receive payment: “I paid 250,000 taka [roughly $4,100] to the agency; I sold my land for 60,000 taka [roughly $1,000] and borrowed the rest. When we got to UAE, we signed four papers but they didn’t give any to us. First we waited for 14 days, but there was no work. We went for training for steel fixing for 10 days. We’ve been on the island for two months since then, and we still haven’t been paid” (HRW, 2009).
As with temporary work visa programs in the United States, foreign construction workers in the UAE depend on the sponsorship of a single company. Those workers who attempt to seek a better job elsewhere are subject to deportation and are banned from returning to the UAE for one year, except in cases in which the sponsor-employer failed to pay them for more than two months. The employer can trigger the deportation of a worker by simply requesting that the UAE ministries of labor and interior cancel the employee’s work permit and residence visa, rendering the employee illegal. Thus unscrupulous recruiters and employers can exploit workers with minimal consequences. Workers have few avenues of protection. While the UAE law prohibits employers from working with agencies that charge worker recruitment fees, UAE officials state that they will not intervene in cases of contract fraud committed by labor agencies outside the country (HRW, 2009).
It is common practice for employers in the UAE to confiscate worker passports. Although UAE law prohibits the confiscation of passports, it also provides an incentive for doing so: companies face heavy fines if they fail to request the government to cancel absconding workers’ visas. The accepted practice has been for employers to request the cancellation by turning in the workers’ passports to the Ministry of Interior. To prevent workers from leaving, companies inform them that they must pay a fine before their passports will be returned to them. This is what happened to a Nepali worker on Saadiyat Island:
We’d like to leave now, but the company said it would cost us a 2,000 dirham fine [roughly $540]. If we had left the UAE within two months, the company says we could’ve avoided the fine, because we were still on a temporary
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