Workers Rights and Unemployment Issues in Qatar and United Arab Emirates - Research Paper Example

? POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC COMPARISON BETWEEN QATAR AND UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ON WORKERS RIGHTS AND UNEMPLOYMENT ISSUES Workers Rights and Unemployment Issues in Qatar and United Arab Emirates Name Course Institution Instructor Date of Submission Employment is an important aspect of the society with almost everyone looking up to good and proper employment as payment for their hard work while in school. However, this is sometimes not always the case since workers are sometimes faced with various obstacles in their employment places. These obstacles range from late and unpaid wages, poor working conditions and many other ills. This is the case in most countries of the world where various political and economic influences tend to interfere with labor issues. Two countries where labor issues are quite prevalent are Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Both countries have a large influx of immigrants who come in for work hence a high rate of labor issues. This paper will examine how political and economic forces affect labor issues in the two countries and most specifically issues dealing with worker rights and unemployment. According to the Human Rights Watch, 2013, Qatar has the highest ratio of non-citizens to citizens in the world, with nationals comprising approximately 12 percent of the population, which translates to only 225,000 citizens in a population of about 1.7 million people. As such, it is difficult to create labor laws that fit both the needs of the citizens and non-citizens. The country has relatively many vacancies and this is the reason for the large influx of people. As a result of the massive vacancies that are available in the country, there are many cases of human trafficking due to the fact that people are promised employment vacancies and as a result some serious cases of negligence occur. The situation is made worse by the fact that Qatar is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regional economic and trade alliance that was founded in 1981. This drove the country to a rapid accumulation of wealth that drove a magnanimous investment and development boom in the GCC. The resulting interest led to a large number of construction projects that attracted wide international attention and also contributed to the growth of infrastructure and many other civil projects (Solidarity Center, 2013). As a result of it, there was a manifestation of the large exploitation of the millions of low wage workers employed in the dangerous and dirty jobs in the various manufacturing companies. Most of the works that these workers were given include construction, cleaning services and domestic work and most of them are migrant workers. Likewise, the United Arab Emirates also gets a large portion of its labor pool from migrant workers mostly from South Asia. According to figures from 2005, 95 percent of the United Arab Emirates labor pools are migrants (Human Rights Watch, 2007). This translates to about 2.7 million workers most of who work in the construction and domestic service industries a scenario that is similar to Qatar’s laborers. Still just like Qatar, there are cases where most of the migrant workers are faced with problems whereby they are not given the work that they are promised when they are going to the country. Actually, in place of this, there is a lot of mistreatment by employers, especially for those who work in domestic areas and lack of proper bargaining channels by those who are employed in construction companies and other public places. The United Arab Emirates had a Draft Labor Law which the government opened for public review and comment on the 5th of February, 2007. There were quite a number of changes that were pointed out for change with some of the areas in need for urgent reform being the exclusion of provisions on workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, this included the prohibition of strikes, the exclusion of certain category of workers such as the domestic, farming and grazing workers from the protection of labor laws (Human Rights Watch, 2007). In addition to this, there was ambiguity regarding the minimum age of employment and the prohibition of women from certain categories of work. The absence of provisions banning the confiscation of passports and other identity documents was also not included in the draft law and this is an issue that most people felt the United Arab Emirates’ government needed to rectify. There was also no provision for the requirement that employment contracts for all the workers had to be made available in workers’ native languages and there were inadequate and unenforced penalties for violations of this law. On the other hand, Law 14 of 2004 in Qatar governing labor in the private sector in corporate some of the important issues affecting most of the workers. The law limits working hours one of the grievances of most of the workers. It also required for paid annual leave for the employees a requirement that most workers in the United Arab Emirates do not enjoy (Human Rights Watch, 2013). There were also requirements on health and safety regulations as well as on time wages for the employees each month. However, the law as well as other supporting legislation did not mention anything with regard to the minimum wage. Other than this, the law allows for Qatari workers to form unions as well as strikes as long as they have prior government approval. On the contrary, migrant workers did not have the right to form unions or strike even though they advocate for a large percentage of the private sector workforce (Human Rights Watch, 2011). Despite the fact that the legislation in Qatar tried to cover most issues affecting employees, there were cases where most of the migrant domestic workers approximately 132, 000 of them felt that they were being excluded (Human Rights Watch, 2013). There were many cases where most migrant workers have reported cases of extensive cases of labor law violations. The most common complaints among Qatari migrant workers included late or unpaid wages and the failure of employers to procure work permits that proved their workers’ legal residence in the country. There were also many instances where workers complained that they had received false information with regard to their work details. Most at times, the jobs and salaries that they got was not the same as what they had been informed about before arrival in the country. In addition to this, they signed their letters of contract under coercive circumstances. The living conditions of many migrant workers was also wanting since most of them lived in overcrowded and dirty labor camps that lacked clean water and were generally lacking in hygiene. Despite all these shortcomings, Qatar is taking an active role in the International Labor Organization and as a country; it is in the process of drafting a new labor law (Usa Ibp, 2005). Qatari sponsors are faced with the responsibility of catering for the needs of any expatriate labor that they are involved with. As such, it is recommended that investors settle all issues that are related with their visas during the early stages of negotiation with the Qatar counterparts that they would be working with (Usa Ibp, 2005). The Qatar partner should handle securing of the visas, permits as well as the provision of labor and accommodation. As a country, migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates had an issue whereby worker passports were being confiscated as a security measure so that the workers may not quit. This was being done by most employers who felt that confiscation of their employees visas would prevent them from travelling back to their country. This together with indebtedness of workers resulting from ‘unlawful’ recruitment fees create conditions that can only be termed as forced labor. There have also been high rates of injury and death among construction workers who most of the times have little or no assurance that their employers will cater for their medical costs. Despite the fact that the laborers have to live in such detrimental conditions, the government does not carry out its duty where it should enforce its own laws that should ensure a regulation of the conduct of most employers (Blanchard, 2011). The situation does not get easier considering the fact that the United Arab Emirates government does not investigate and prosecute employers who violate the set labor laws despite the fact that some employees may try to voice their concerns to the relevant authorities (Human Rights Watch, 2013). Still, there is lack of a transparent, well documented and accessible system in place for the resolution of labor disputes. The situation is made worse by the fact that most of the people who are affected, migrant workers, lack avenues where they can voice their concerns on the poor working conditions due to the fact that government has refused to allow workers to organize trade unions or bargain collectively as employees (Human Rights Watch, 2011). In September 2006, the Ministry of Labor in the United Arab Emirates issued a resolution that banned striking migrant workers from further employment in the country for at least a year. This regulation led to the deportation of many workers who had been found striking. Efforts by other concerned bodies to raise concerns on the issues affection workers in the United Arab Emirates are met by frustrations where groups such as the Red Crescent and Human Rights Association face harassment and censorship. There are never any public discussions on the nature of the workers’ rights violations. This translates to the local media which does not report cases where there are violent strikes and some of the death cases that arise as a result of unsafe working conditions. Unemployment is a critical social and economic problem in both developed and developing countries and the United Arab Emirates, though rich oil based company has not escaped this problem (Albuinain, 2004). Before the independence of the country, its economy was dominated by economic activities such as fishing and little agriculture. However, with the discovery of oil, and the rise of oil prices in the 1970’s provided the country with financial resources which enabled it to make a lot of economic development programs and created employment opportunities. The rise in economic development led to a shortage of national labor a factor that made the country rely more on imported labor hence the large number of migrants in the country. According to Albuinain, 2004, the drop of oil prices that occurred in the middle 1980’s as well as population growth in the country made unemployment an issue. There was an increase in the number of nationals that were looking for jobs and this trend continued to the 1990’s till present. Unemployment rate in the United Arab Emirates is considered one of the lowest in the world having been computed at 2.4 percent by the end of the year 2001 (Albuinain, 2004). During this time, the labor force was estimated to be around 2.1 million and of this 2.0 million was employed. However, the percentage may be slightly higher considering the fact that there are a number of illegal expatriates who enter the labor market in the country quite frequently. As such, the number of United Arab Emirates’ nationals who are unemployed may be a little bit higher (Albuinain, 2004). This situation is made worse considering the fact that the countries’ population is growing at a rather fast rate and there are also many nationals who are graduating from universities and colleges every year. This is a factor that has made unemployment an issue in the recent years especially among the nationals. With the same regard, a survey made in the country showed that most nationals prefer working in the public sector as a security measure though the government is trying to encourage more Emiratis to join the private sector other than the public sector that they are used to (Qabbani & Shaheen, 2011). According to a survey carried out in 2012 in Qatar, the number of unemployed Qatari totaled 2,600 which translate to almost 3.1 percent of the total labor force in Qatar. On the other hand, the number of non-Qatari residents in the country who are unemployed in the country are 3, 892 and the rate has remained to be 0.3 percent since the year 2011 (QSA labor force sample survey, 2012). The construction industry seems to have the most number of employees absorbing about 37.2 percent of the labor force and most of them are not nationals. The rest of the work force work in public administration, education and health and the percentage of male workers are generally higher compared to the number of females. 63.9 percent of male are absorbed in the labor force as compared to 36.1 percent females (QSA labor force sample survey, 2012). The private sector accounts for the largest share of the total labor force most of them being non-Qatari at 99.2 percent. On the other hand, the public sector is dominated by Qatari nationals and still the percentage of males is higher compared to that of women (QSA labor force sample survey, 2012). However, there has been a slight rise in the number of Qatari labor force that joins the private sector compared to the earlier years. Just like the United Arab Emirates, the rate of unemployment in Qatar is very low as little as 0.6 percent (Omarsc, 2012). The rate is much lower compared to the United Arab Emirates 3.4 percent. This is contributed by the fact that most of the residents in Qatar are non-nations, and one of the reasons why these people find themselves in Qatar is because they want to secure some employment. Therefore, none of the non-Qatari nationals in the country do not have any business being in Qatar if they do not have a work permit hence they get deported in case their permits have expired. Movement between different sectors of the economy and countries sometimes affects the employment rate in Qatar (The Global Economy, 2013). Both countries are doing quite well in terms of solving the unemployment issue that many countries grapple with. However, Qatar as a country is doing much better compared to the United Arab Emirates. Both countries are yet to put forward comprehensive national employment strategies that include a vision shared by the government to ensure that there is zero tolerance to unemployment (Trading Economics, 2012). In conclusion, The United Arab Emirates seems to be having some issues with regard to worker rights and labor laws that are supposed to take care of the rights of the workers. This is the same case in Qatar where there are still cases of employer mistreatment and many other issues with regard to unfavorable work conditions. It will take the intervention of the governments of both countries to ensure that labor conditions are favorable. The aspect of Human Rights has become a sensitive issue the world over and these two countries are on the spotlight since they have to come up with laws that favor both the nationals and migrants who are many in their countries. Unemployment is not much of an issue in these two countries since they are among countries with the lowest rate of unemployment but they can still make the situation better by creating more employment opportunities and ensuring that the workers in the private sector are treated better. References Albuainain, R. M. (2004), Unemployment Rate in the United Arab Emirates: The case of Abu Dhabi. Retrieved on 15th May 2013 from http://www.erf.org.eg/CMS/uploads/pdf/0404_final.pdf Blanchard, C. M. (2011), Qatar: Background and U.S Relations, New York: DIANE Publishing Human Rights Watch (2007), The United Arab Emirates Draft Labor Law, New York: Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch (2011), World Report 2012: Qatar, Retrieved on 15th May 2013 from http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-qatar Human Rights Watch (2013), Human Rights in the United Arab Emirates, Retrieved on 15th May 2013 from http://www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/united-arab-emirates Human Rights Watch (2013), Qatar: Promises, Little Action on Migrant Workers’ Rights. 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