Sunday, March 26, 2006 - 12:00 AM
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AZIZ SHAH / AP
Foreign workers have rioted near the site in downtown Dubai of what is to be the world's largest skyscraper.
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
The New York Times
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — For Rajee Kumaran, this was the city of dreams.
Dubai's high-rises, idyllic beaches and seemingly limitless opportunities glittered on the pages of brochures and in the stories told by laborers returning home to his native Kerala, India.
But after five years here, surviving in squalid conditions and barely making ends meet on less than $200 a month, Kumaran, 28, says his dream has long since faded.
"I thought this was the land of opportunity, but I was fooled," he said Thursday, as he stood with several other construction workers outside their work camp in the desert on the city's outskirts.
When hundreds of workers angered by low salaries and mistreatment rioted Tuesday at the site of what is to become the world's tallest skyscraper, not only were they expressing the growing frustration of Asian migrants, they offered a glimpse of an increasingly organized labor force.
Far from the high-rise towers and luxury hotels of Dubai, the workers turning this swath of desert into a modern metropolis live in a Dickensian world of cramped labor camps, low pay and increasing desperation.
For years, workers like Kumaran have done whatever they could to get here, often paying thousands of dollars to unscrupulous recruiters for the chance to work at one of the hundreds of construction sites.
Of the 1.5 million residents of Dubai, as many as a million are immigrants who have come here to work, with the largest subgroup being construction workers, said Hadi Ghaemi, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who covers the United Arab Emirates, citing government statistics.
Most immigrants come from the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines.
With the cost of living rising, many have abandoned dreams of going home rich. The construction camps, in particular, have been set ever deeper in the desert. That adds an hour or two just to get to the job site, in addition to the 12-hour shifts.
A growing number have committed suicide rather than return home with empty pockets. Last year, 84 South Asians in Dubai killed themselves, according to the Indian Consulate here, up from 70 in 2004.
Kumaran earns about $150 a month as a laborer and sends home almost half his earnings; he lives on about $60 a month.
"If I'd stayed in India and worked just as hard as I do now, I could have made the same money," he said. "And I wouldn't have needed to get a loan to come here."
Since September, when 800 workers marched down a main highway and set off a national debate about the treatment of foreign workers, laborers have held at least eight major strikes to demand their rights and get their pay.
But the mass action Tuesday was the most significant of its kind. Hundreds of workers building the Burj Dubai skyscraper chased off security guards and broke into offices, smashing computers, scattering files and wrecking cars and construction machines.
When they returned to work the next day, demanding better pay and working conditions, thousands of laborers building an airport terminal across town also laid down their tools to demand better conditions. The workers also halted work Thursday, until a settlement was negotiated.
"It was a watershed moment in coordination and organization," Ghaemi said. "It started with increasing numbers of strikes, and has now evolved into very organized and coordinated activities. If these grievances are not addressed quickly by the government they are sure to begin hurting the economic growth of the country."
These workers have few rights. Visa sponsors and employers typically confiscate their passports and residency permits when they sign on, restricting their freedom of movement and their ability to report abuse.
Most pay recruiters to find work here, a practice the UAE has sought to stop. When they get here, few workers can leave the country without the permission of their employers, who can block them from working elsewhere in the country if they resign or are fired.
Unionizing is forbidden, too, and most workers have no recourse other than the labor ministry.
Denial of wages is the most common abuse, since contracting companies typically wait to pay workers until they themselves get paid. In the worst cases, workers have been denied wages for more than 10 months, only to lose the entire salary when contracting companies go bankrupt.
The UAE's Ministry of Labor has addressed the problem in recent months, making changes meant to allow workers to switch employers more easily and imposing strict penalties on employers that do not pay their workers.
Workers can call a toll-free hotline to the ministry to lodge complaints, which are investigated.
But the sheer number of workers who have poured into the country over the past two years and inadequate staffing at the ministry have meant that many problems slip through, some officials and human-rights workers say.
Only 80 government inspectors oversee about 200,000 companies and other establishments that employ migrant workers, Ghaemi said, citing government figures.
The inspectors also look at labor camps: Of 36 camps inspected from May through December, the ministry ranked 27 well below government standards.