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Just went out for a while n I got fried. Just realized the hard work n dedication they put in. The kind of job they do, they deserve all respect.

trumphets blowing and we all bowing, a hard salute to all the labourers out there, am with u st.luci !

Arrived back at Dubai airport on Thursday morning and outside was about 30-40 guys all lined up with stickers on their shirts with there name and some construction companies name underneath.

They were all smiling and beaming looking excited and no doubt had 'Dubai Dreams' of making it big - meanwhile some d1ck was pushing them into line and shouting at them.

I just felt super f*cked off - knowing they are going spend the first month crying themselves to sleep on some labor camp away from there family's until eventually get that blank thousand yard blank stare that develops.

I love Dubai, but sometimes its like Britain circa 1907 they way it treats the people building the city and making it what it is.

Dubai dreams .. hehehehehhe so true..

i am born & brought up here. never been to india, but now i think i should return back as i dont have any guarentee when they will kick us expats out.

They raised pepsi from 1 buck to 2 bucks. Tea was 0.50 fils, now at mamzar they sell it for 1 buck ? My mom used to by household & foodstuff for 200 Dhs ( that too for a month and a half ) once upon a time. She spends 500 Dhs only on foodstuff for 3 people.

Seriously guys, dubai is getting sick everyday -=

jabbajabba , that word 'Dubai Dreams' .. weighs a lot

Alot of the global economy is built and relys on cheap labour

ahamed wrote:i am born & brought up here. never been to india, but now i think i should return back as i dont have any guarentee when they will kick us expats out.

They raised pepsi from 1 buck to 2 bucks.

No one is going to kick expats out anytime soon, for obvious reasons.

And where did you buy Bebsi for 2 bucks, dude? You got ripped off!

well for a start the gov should specify a minimum wage to those labors, I mean with all these projects companies wont mind raising salaries, I guess..

what about the people who work at "Carrefour"? Dont u guys think they deserve some respect and more wages ?.

You know, I was helping my sister with her research on the Human Rights Watch, when I typed UAE in the website, I found out it is one of the worst countries regarding the human rights. I read the new labor law didn't make it, I also read about several strikes that happened before.
I didn't knew any of this, you all probably know it because you are here longer and might know some how experienced it. Very disappointing.

it is amazing what they endure -- i doubt i could handle it

but then you have to think about why they came here and what awaits them back home

i remarked to a colleague how many non-westerners are so eager to get to the US/UK/Australia/Canada/etc and he pointed out that for a lot of people here, dubai is that opportunity

the difference between a knowledge economy and a manufacturing/agarian economy is huge and getting wider by the day

eloi and morlocks-- wonder if/when the roof will blow off!

EyeCandyDiva wrote:You know, I was helping my sister with her research on the Human Rights Watch, when I typed UAE in the website, I found out it is one of the worst countries regarding the human rights. I read the new labor law didn't make it, I also read about several strikes that happened before.
I didn't knew any of this, you all probably know it because you are here longer and might know some how experienced it. Very disappointing.

dear EyeCandyDiva,
What is rely disappointing is Lebanon, where you people party all nights and get drunk and the other half of the country doesn't have water to drink or roofs in their homes, so you and your sister might wanaa do a study on that at least you may come up with a solution to help your won people !!

hhehe firefingers your a funny man. Instead of counter attacking like this why don't you do some objective defending of the points she presented? You get extremely irritated once anyone criticizes the UAE, you need to come to terms with the fact that we dont live in Utopia

EyeCandyDiva: I wouldnt say the UAE is "one of the worst countries regarding human rights" .. yes there are violations but if you look at the overall direction it has been improving dramatically in the past few years. Dr. Al Kaabi the minister of labor is an amazing man who has been working very hard to put things in place.

let me tell you a bit about the improvements that have happened

During the summer, Laborers are not allowed to work between 12:30 and 4:30 pm .. There has been hotlines setup at the ministry of labor to receive complaints in urdu/hindi about unpaid wages or other injustices .. The minister has been flying to all the countries that supply labor to the UAE and signing agreements to limit illegal recruiting and exploitation, etc ..

So the government is working hard on fixing the situation ... yes there is lots of space for improvement and the new labor law was up for public review for two months will contain improvements but still miss some important things like the right to bargain collectively (unionize) and strike. Also it excluded domestic workers and others from the law making them subject to exploitation.

right infront of my office I can see ppl sweating it out in the killing sun to build Saediya station(if i'm not wrong). Yes they may have made the rules.. but who cares to follow them..the helpless workers, who have their passports pledged with the employers and the ownership documents of their only piece of land n something they call home on mortage?

There's still a lot of work to be done for the workers.. apart from making the rules..

hats off to them...wothout them all of us wont be seating inside a very nice office

firefingers wrote:

EyeCandyDiva wrote:You know, I was helping my sister with her research on the Human Rights Watch, when I typed UAE in the website, I found out it is one of the worst countries regarding the human rights. I read the new labor law didn't make it, I also read about several strikes that happened before.
I didn't knew any of this, you all probably know it because you are here longer and might know some how experienced it. Very disappointing.

dear EyeCandyDiva,
What is rely disappointing is Lebanon, where you people party all nights and get drunk and the other half of the country doesn't have water to drink or roofs in their homes, so you and your sister might wanaa do a study on that at least you may come up with a solution to help your won people !!

First of all, I wouldn't blame you for thinking Lebanon is all about partying and drinking. I have seen Khaleeji people over there and all they care about is booze and party. So if you decide to judge a certain country on what you only seek, then sincerely I don't blame you, rather than exploring what a culture a country has.

Moving on, the research wasn't about UAE, but when I was at the site, I thought of typing UAE and got the result and I was disappointed.
Here's a link to what I was talking about (BTW, the site is authentic and not fabricated if you might hint to that. We have a saying in Arabic and I am sure you are familiar with: the Human Rights Watch doesn't work for the royalty here!):

http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=uae
There's an Arabic version to suit your poor English.

Here' s another one:

"United Nations Human Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Report 2006 released on Thursday shows that despite the huge GDP growth reported by GCC countries, some of them including the UAE and Qatar have slipped in their Human Development Index (HDI) rankings.
Despite the big strides in economic growth last year, Qatar and UAE have slipped in their rankings. While Qatar is ranked at 46, down 6 places from last year the UAE is down 8 places in HDI 2006 at 49.
According to the Human Development Report 2006, states like the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar are amongst the richest in the world in terms of GDP per-capita. However, their HDI ranking places them among much poorer states like Mexico, Romania and Argentina. The UNDP report says this is because Gulf economies are heavily dependent on oil revenues, whereas the HDI also takes other aspects of economic and social data into account."
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.a ... 1093132878

What is the point of being rich if you have a low human rights standard? Is bread more important than liberty?

BTW, it wasn't a shot at the UAE, quite frankly I love it here but that doesn't mean I have to "blindly" approve everything.

Oh and don't dear me, I don't accept such addressing from losers, sorry.

MaaaD wrote:hhehe firefingers your a funny man. Instead of counter attacking like this why don't you do some objective defending of the points she presented? You get extremely irritated once anyone criticizes the UAE, you need to come to terms with the fact that we dont live in Utopia

EyeCandyDiva: I wouldnt say the UAE is "one of the worst countries regarding human rights" .. yes there are violations but if you look at the overall direction it has been improving dramatically in the past few years. Dr. Al Kaabi the minister of labor is an amazing man who has been working very hard to put things in place.

let me tell you a bit about the improvements that have happened

During the summer, Laborers are not allowed to work between 12:30 and 4:30 pm .. There has been hotlines setup at the ministry of labor to receive complaints in urdu/hindi about unpaid wages or other injustices .. The minister has been flying to all the countries that supply labor to the UAE and signing agreements to limit illegal recruiting and exploitation, etc ..

So the government is working hard on fixing the situation ... yes there is lots of space for improvement and the new labor law was up for public review for two months will contain improvements but still miss some important things like the right to bargain collectively (unionize) and strike. Also it excluded domestic workers and others from the law making them subject to exploitation.

It is not patriotic to "polish" your country's image, this is stupidity especially if there are evidence of valuations. Also, it is not patriotic either to lower down other and superior your country.
Those people , the "I am all patriotic" people, suffer form real lack of democracy, they can't say anything or think for themselves.
And don't expect them to really argue, discuss or share straight opinions MaaaD, it will be a waste of time because more "attacking" comments will come.

I have always thought of the UAE to have good labor situations because there are huge numbers of working expats so I thought things here are great, so when I read what was written I was shocked. That's all.

Wish I could write more but I have to solve the Middle East problems, save Iraq, stop the war in Palestine and rebuild Lebanon! I mean, if for just a simple comment I had to figure out a way of saving my own country from lack of water then after sharing my opinions, I gotta do all these stuff!

hmm Couldnt figure out how is this a cultural issue..

ok well u've made some serious points there Candy. And please not focus on flaming each other.... lets focus on topic.. And Fire Fingers.. U dont have to be upset.. mate.... UAE is a great place.. agreed.. but it would b nice to see this wonderful place being economically more balanced. Not controlling Socio-economic imbalance is the path to disaster, one can refer to many of the super developed countries to understand how has it affected the society and what efforts are they taking to curb issues raising out of it.

[
BTW, it wasn't a shot at the UAE, quite frankly I love it here but that doesn't mean I have to "blindly" approve everything.

Oh and don't dear me, I don't accept such addressing from losers, sorry.[/quote]

No one cares neither asked your approval on anything dear. Still you really need to focus on your country.
I admit and We all know UAE has lots of human rights issues, and you need to admit that you guys are ignoring your north side of the country and does not give a dam about their situation because of religious and racist issues ? isn't this a human right issue ON YOUR WON CITIZEN ?
All I'm saying is that put your efforts and commons in a useful use honey.
And the loser is you dear who can not get her personal life straight and start posing her ..................... never mind
I'm a loser , so be it.

Its like the old saying, "my openions have chnged, but not the fact that I'm always right."

Y is it so diffcult for people.. is it always about winning an argument and pepping up ones ego. And while doing so, we dont even care if we've completely missed the point that we are discussing about. Its the deeds that we should be concerned about not our own deluging egos.

I think one valid point regarding critic of Dubai on this forum is quite simply - this is the 'dubai' forum.

I am sure if you went onto the 'bangkok' or 'london' forum you will find people complaining about those cities.

I mean I have a football team that i support - they always lose, I always have harsh words about the manager - 'why on earth did they spend all that money on a donkey that can't even kick a ball??!', 'Bl00dy premiership clubs get all the money' etc etc --- But I still love them. It's being passionate about something, caring and feeling a part of it that you feel you want to speak up and be heard.

If no one ever says anything - its cause they just don't give a sh1t.

I know for one I can list plenty of points about the UK that really p1ss me off and i feel is wrong.

firefingers wrote:[
BTW, it wasn't a shot at the UAE, quite frankly I love it here but that doesn't mean I have to "blindly" approve everything.

Oh and don't dear me, I don't accept such addressing from losers, sorry.

No one cares neither asked your approval on anything dear. Still you really need to focus on your country.
I admit and We all know UAE has lots of human rights issues, and you need to admit that you guys are ignoring your north side of the country and does not give a dam about their situation because of religious and racist issues ? isn't this a human right issue ON YOUR WON CITIZEN ?
All I'm saying is that put your efforts and commons in a useful use honey.
And the loser is you dear who can not get her personal life straight and start posing her ..................... never mind
I'm a loser , so be it.[/quote]



First of all, improve your English, I had a difficult time understanding this sentence:
"And the loser is you dear who can not get her personal life straight and start posing her ..................... never mind"
If you are respectful enough, you wouldn't switch it to personal matters. Criticize my opinions, not me. How do you know about my personal life? Such a dumb comment. Seemed out of a steam of stupidity. Only losers who turn things into personal matters, they go off topic or simply ran out of persuasive opinions which is your case. I read your old posts, you stink at discussions, when you have nothing to say, you either have a bad mouth or flee.

Second of all, I never claimed Lebanon to have good human rights, read my post again, carefully this time, nor did Lebanon promoted itself as a land of gold. Lets' be realistic, it never did.

You think it is patriotic to promote "hear no evil , see no evil, speak no evil" thing? You are wrong. You can love your country and be patriotic to the bones however don't blindly cross things. And you can just do that by not pulling other countries in.

My point is: the issue is about UAE's labor and I said my opinion, why did you have to drag Lebanon in? You do this so often and it is wrong. You take things personally in a patriotic way. Just accept good discussions for god's sake and leave irrelevant things out.

It's ok if you are politically ignorant, but everyone knows how Lebanon suffered from wars. The issue here is UAE's human rights and labor matters, who said anything about Lebanon? Or is just childish act just to lower down other countries? And they say why Arab's aren't united?

How come you ignored the evidences I put and just commented on the end? Lack of persuasion? Perhaps you should work on your argument matters.

The issue is about UAE's labor and I am commenting on the topic, you are the one who needs to be on topic, you just switched the subject. So my efforts are right, why would I write about Lebanon in a UAE matter? Beats me.

No one will ask you for your opinions nor approval regarding anything either, but it is a matter of freedom of speech. Just because you aren't allowed to say "everything" because of the royals that doesn't mean we all have to be that. I will say what I want to say even if you don't approve it and I will say it again: I love it here!

Don't honey me either, I am not your mother you dirt bag.

St.Lucifer wrote:Its like the old saying, "my openions have chnged, but not the fact that I'm always right."

Y is it so diffcult for people.. is it always about winning an argument and pepping up ones ego. And while doing so, we dont even care if we've completely missed the point that we are discussing about. Its the deeds that we should be concerned about not our own deluging egos.

Sorry "St.Lucifer" but I just couldn't help while reading the most "irrelevant", "off topic", "dumb" and" persuasion lacking" comment ever!

I was thinking to myself a lot of things are changing for the better and then I got this newsletter with a link from ArabianBuisness;

The GCC may ban Filipinos from coming to the Gulf to work due to regulations passed by the Southeast Asian country’s government aimed at improving the standard of living for its citizens working in the region.

The GCC Committee for Importing Foreign Workers yesterday unanimously agreed to stop importing Filipinos until their government's labour laws have been clarified.

“Participants agreed to submit this recommendation [to stop importing Filipinos] to the decision-makers in the GCC and expressed hope that this recommendation would be implemented as soon as possible,” Abdel-Aziz Al-Ali, the head of Kuwait's domestic labour offices, told the Kuwait News Agency.

So why a ban?

Is it because there is concern that foreign governments might put pressure on that workers from the country have health insurance and more rights?

Or they want to make sure they can meet these requirements.

Hopefully it is the later - but banning a whole nationality is a bit harsh?

This is like the US banning all mexicans or the UK banning all Polish workers.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.ph ... s&Itemid=0

firefingers wrote:
I admit and We all know UAE has lots of human rights issues, and you need to admit that you guys are ignoring your north side of the country and does not give a dam about their situation because of religious and racist issues ? isn't this a human right issue ON YOUR WON CITIZEN ?

Now I get what you mean. You are saying simply to mind my own business just because I am not local and my country is facing problems! According to this sense, everyone should stop their discussions, reporters and news agencies should stop their reports and newspapers will have to shut down the global sections.

There are so many nationalities in this forum and they can discuss what they want whenever they want, they live here and it concerns them, regardless if you approve their discussions or not.

I have come to figure there are people from India, Pakistan, Philippine, Singapore, Bangladesh, and many others. Some of these countries have some issues, should they not then discuss UAE's labor situations? There is no country in the world that doesn't have its share of problems, you shouldn't expect people then to discuss anything if they just "cared about their citizens"!

This puts a whole new meaning to the freedom of speech. I am entitled to my opinion and I have the freedom to say it.

We live in a small village, you can't prevent people from discussing anything nor expressing their opinion in which matter they choose. You can't hide the facts either, information is shared widely. You might just hope Etisalat will block nearly every site that has criticize UAE so that people will have no clue whatsoever on what is going on in the real stage, just the polished image distributed by propaganda.

Am throwing the towel with such useless non sense.

firefingers wrote: ON YOUR WON CITIZEN ?

If you are going to cap it, spell it correctly!



St.Lucifer you really shouldn't open this thread, you aren't local my friend therefore you can't discuss this matter. Leave it to the locals, we just sit back and pretend everything is great, "kick you in the crunch, spit on your nick" great!

EyeCandyDiva: respect for keeping the debate civil and factual !!! i wish more people where like that around here ...

jabbajabba wrote:I was thinking to myself a lot of things are changing for the better and then I got this newsletter with a link from ArabianBuisness;

The GCC may ban Filipinos from coming to the Gulf to work due to regulations passed by the Southeast Asian country’s government aimed at improving the standard of living for its citizens working in the region.

The GCC Committee for Importing Foreign Workers yesterday unanimously agreed to stop importing Filipinos until their government's labour laws have been clarified.

“Participants agreed to submit this recommendation [to stop importing Filipinos] to the decision-makers in the GCC and expressed hope that this recommendation would be implemented as soon as possible,” Abdel-Aziz Al-Ali, the head of Kuwait's domestic labour offices, told the Kuwait News Agency.

So why a ban?

Is it because there is concern that foreign governments might put pressure on that workers from the country have health insurance and more rights?

Or they want to make sure they can meet these requirements.

Hopefully it is the later - but banning a whole nationality is a bit harsh?

This is like the US banning all mexicans or the UK banning all Polish workers.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.ph ... s&Itemid=0

first time i heard about the ban.. although not clear to me whether this ban applies to domestic helpers only or professionals as well. in any case, why ban?

i would say, let the employers pick their choice. if they can afford to pay, why stop them from hiring who they want?

EyeCandyDiva wrote:you aren't local my friend therefore you can't discuss this matter. Leave it to the locals, we just sit back and pretend everything is great, "kick you in the crunch, spit on your nick" great!

I don't follow

Philipino ban was because Philippines said minimum should be $400 per month. But some are paid less in the UAE.

If I'm not local, ignore what I said.

Jabba : Nice views and good relative reasoning.

Diva: Are you sure of your right to freedom of speech and expression in UAE? I'm not that sure abt it. but like I said.. u are good..

One has to be real dumb to not understand what is being spoken about in this thread.

MaaaD wrote:EyeCandyDiva: respect for keeping the debate civil and factual !!! i wish more people where like that around here ...

I second that. Good to see.