Pay Day
Chapter 6: Pyramid Builders
Chapter 7
May 2006, and already the third payment on my flat was due. The $22,000 would not be hard to swing, as I had already drawn on savings that had been previously allocated for retirement years. It was also 2 months since excavation work at the MAG 218 site had finally gotten underway. I had some sense of comfort in that the progress could, at last, be measured on the ground, but the fact was that there had already been a significant amount of delay and my weekly visits to the site did not reveal a very fast pace of work. Regardless, the third payment was due, bringing me up to 30% paid, while completion of the tower could well be some 3 years away.
I continued to marvel at the pace of development across the Marina at-large. True, most projects were behind schedule--some a few months, some up to two years and even some that seemed to have completely stalled. The casual observer, however, would not be cognizant of this. Visit the Marina after a lapse of a few months and one would find numerous towers rising which had not before been evident. Other towers would be seen topping out. In a city full of construction zones, the Marina was clearly the site of the most frenetic pace of work. This was in large part due to the massive 40-tower development called the Jumeirah Beach Residences, or simply JBR.
It is possible to hire a small pleasure craft and ride out into the Gulf from the Dubai Marina. From offshore one will see the JBR and the rest of the Marina appearing as a dense row of towers lining the coast. This is the new Dubai. The JBR is promoted as the largest single-phase residential development in the world, a claim no one would doubt. It is also emblematic of a lot of development in Dubai Marina if not Dubai at-large. Once complete it will consist of up to 6,500 residential units and four hotel towers, catering exclusively to up-market residents and travellers. In a city with a chronic shortage of low and middle-income housing, Dubai Marina will eventually offer high-priced accommodations for up to 200,000. The idea is to create an exclusive, freezone enclave that caters to an international cliental who can afford the life of an executive or high-tiered traveller. As such, while hoping to attract millions of dollars in investment and leisure spending to Dubai, the large service and labor sector is being neglected.
From the start of construction in 2003, the JBR was home to thousands of laborers. Although bussed to and from the massive construction site daily, the workers spent long 8-12 hour shifts onsite carrying out all the jobs too difficult or too expensive to do by machine. Their low wages meant that hard to source equipment in an over-stretched construction market could be forgone for the cheaper option. Without adequate safety regulations in place or inspectors to enforce the codes that were present, companies did not have to spend much on expensive safety gear and other provisions.
Safety boots and gloves were the responsibility of the workers on salaries as low as $150 per month--or $0.60 per hour. The coveralls they wore and put through the grind daily had to be washed, often by hand, by the workers themselves--that is, when they could find time between queuing to use toilets, showers and kitchens. Even at that, one could say that safety conditions were better than they had been up to the recent past. At least most workers could actually be seen wearing boots instead of sandals and most were provided helmets. Safety harnesses were available in some number, but still used infrequently.
The biggest safety hazard, however, was that workers were largely untrained and pressured to work fast and hard. With so many construction sites across the city, most workers were FOB--fresh off the boat. Most, coming from farms and villages, had no experience at construction work and had never seen before the tools and equipment being used. While not yet acclimated to their new environment they were immediately put to work. Most likely even the foremen, supervisors and project managers that worked with them were short on experience and certainly inexperienced at directing a platoon of fresh workers. All this was compounded by language issues where laborers themselves may have represented a variety of language groups, in addition to their foremen and supervisors. Communication consisted of an amalgamation of pidgin-level Hindu, Urdu, English and Arabic, along with a variety of other languages common to South Asia. In time varieties of Chinese and other East Asian languages would have to be added to the mix.
Onsite accidents and mishaps were not infrequent. A major incident might have been reported in the press, but even that was on the rare occasion. Small cuts, injuries and illnesses due to heat, exhaustion, stress and the poor work and living environment were par for the course. Life in the JBR from 2003-2007, the expected completion date, would be one of hardship and misery for its builders. One of the big questions was "Why," when millions were being spent by future residents and buyers even before these projects were anywhere near completion. Materials and equipment costs were clearly rising, but the high prices being charged for properties were a reflection of not the cost of building them but the demand or suggested demand in the market. The revenue that flooded in for many projects, however, did not manage to trickle down to pay laborers' wages or purchase needed safety gear and equipment for them.
JBR was an impressive building site. The finished property would be stellar, as could be said of many of Dubai's new developments. Delays would be the order of the day and finished properties would almost surely fail the snagging processes. Numerous defects would be found in materials and workmanship. But at the end of the day, these would be impressive and attractive properties. Enough money was being paid by investors to assure as much. But there was also a high price being paid in blood, sweat and tears. Workers would be injured or grow ill without access to adequate medical care. Like most other expenses, charges for doctor visits were the responsibility of the laborers. Even in the case of an accident onsite, companies often required workers to reimburse it for the cost of treatment, which would be deducted from wages. A worker dare not get injured or grow ill for the double burden of suffering physically while bearing the resulting financial burden. For losing additional days or weeks of pay for not being able to work, he could well be driven into a cycle of debt, if not already up to his neck in it.
Some would even consider the fallen worker, the luckier one. There were suicides. Perhaps this might explain the mysterious death of the worker not found until morning. While the most unlucky would meet their deaths while building Dubai's towering residences, more would suffer from injuries, minor to severe, and nearly all would bear the hardship of poor living and working conditions and wages that, when paid, often still left them in debt and poverty.
In the United States a $5-$6 per hour minimum wage is lamented for not being enough to keep a small family above the poverty level. Construction laborers in the UAE earn 1/10th of that, while in many respects the cost of living in the UAE is comparable to that of any industrialized country. The UAE, as a country, is relatively wealthy, and the wages of the its wage-earners clearly reflect this. The many thousands at the bottom, however, who make-up over 20% of the work force, earn wages comarable to the poorest of third world countries.
Pay day on 1 May 2006 meant another $22,000 installment to be paid out on my small luxury apartment. That single installment would pay the salaries of 146 workers for a month. Using the same math, over the 4 years it might take to build the tower, only 5% of my total spend could employ 6 workers throughout the duration, leaving over 95% to pay for whatever other cost there were associated with constructing a tower. Six workers--so what? Extrapolating that figure to cover all units in the tower, just 5% of the total payment being made would cover the salaries of some 4000 laborers over the full 48 month duration. There will never be 4000 workers on the MAG 218 site. At best the maximum number of laborers at any one time would be 1/10th of that. The cost of labor on the project, therefore, would hardly amount to even 2 or 3% of the total cost. The cost of office supplies to the company would probably be greater.
Pay day for Mohammed, Abdulla, Rajeesh, Kumar, Harinder and any of the countless other laborers at the tower sites scattered across the Dubai Marina, and the whole of the UAE, would be about $150 for the month, $5 a day or just $0.60 per hour for toiling in the heat and dust.
1759 (this post), total 11,957 words
Chapter 8: Shift in Focus
Technorati Tags: Jumeirah Beach Residences, laborer wages in the UAE, construction costs in the UAE, condominium prices
Chapter 7
May 2006, and already the third payment on my flat was due. The $22,000 would not be hard to swing, as I had already drawn on savings that had been previously allocated for retirement years. It was also 2 months since excavation work at the MAG 218 site had finally gotten underway. I had some sense of comfort in that the progress could, at last, be measured on the ground, but the fact was that there had already been a significant amount of delay and my weekly visits to the site did not reveal a very fast pace of work. Regardless, the third payment was due, bringing me up to 30% paid, while completion of the tower could well be some 3 years away.
I continued to marvel at the pace of development across the Marina at-large. True, most projects were behind schedule--some a few months, some up to two years and even some that seemed to have completely stalled. The casual observer, however, would not be cognizant of this. Visit the Marina after a lapse of a few months and one would find numerous towers rising which had not before been evident. Other towers would be seen topping out. In a city full of construction zones, the Marina was clearly the site of the most frenetic pace of work. This was in large part due to the massive 40-tower development called the Jumeirah Beach Residences, or simply JBR.
It is possible to hire a small pleasure craft and ride out into the Gulf from the Dubai Marina. From offshore one will see the JBR and the rest of the Marina appearing as a dense row of towers lining the coast. This is the new Dubai. The JBR is promoted as the largest single-phase residential development in the world, a claim no one would doubt. It is also emblematic of a lot of development in Dubai Marina if not Dubai at-large. Once complete it will consist of up to 6,500 residential units and four hotel towers, catering exclusively to up-market residents and travellers. In a city with a chronic shortage of low and middle-income housing, Dubai Marina will eventually offer high-priced accommodations for up to 200,000. The idea is to create an exclusive, freezone enclave that caters to an international cliental who can afford the life of an executive or high-tiered traveller. As such, while hoping to attract millions of dollars in investment and leisure spending to Dubai, the large service and labor sector is being neglected.
From the start of construction in 2003, the JBR was home to thousands of laborers. Although bussed to and from the massive construction site daily, the workers spent long 8-12 hour shifts onsite carrying out all the jobs too difficult or too expensive to do by machine. Their low wages meant that hard to source equipment in an over-stretched construction market could be forgone for the cheaper option. Without adequate safety regulations in place or inspectors to enforce the codes that were present, companies did not have to spend much on expensive safety gear and other provisions.
Safety boots and gloves were the responsibility of the workers on salaries as low as $150 per month--or $0.60 per hour. The coveralls they wore and put through the grind daily had to be washed, often by hand, by the workers themselves--that is, when they could find time between queuing to use toilets, showers and kitchens. Even at that, one could say that safety conditions were better than they had been up to the recent past. At least most workers could actually be seen wearing boots instead of sandals and most were provided helmets. Safety harnesses were available in some number, but still used infrequently.
The biggest safety hazard, however, was that workers were largely untrained and pressured to work fast and hard. With so many construction sites across the city, most workers were FOB--fresh off the boat. Most, coming from farms and villages, had no experience at construction work and had never seen before the tools and equipment being used. While not yet acclimated to their new environment they were immediately put to work. Most likely even the foremen, supervisors and project managers that worked with them were short on experience and certainly inexperienced at directing a platoon of fresh workers. All this was compounded by language issues where laborers themselves may have represented a variety of language groups, in addition to their foremen and supervisors. Communication consisted of an amalgamation of pidgin-level Hindu, Urdu, English and Arabic, along with a variety of other languages common to South Asia. In time varieties of Chinese and other East Asian languages would have to be added to the mix.
Onsite accidents and mishaps were not infrequent. A major incident might have been reported in the press, but even that was on the rare occasion. Small cuts, injuries and illnesses due to heat, exhaustion, stress and the poor work and living environment were par for the course. Life in the JBR from 2003-2007, the expected completion date, would be one of hardship and misery for its builders. One of the big questions was "Why," when millions were being spent by future residents and buyers even before these projects were anywhere near completion. Materials and equipment costs were clearly rising, but the high prices being charged for properties were a reflection of not the cost of building them but the demand or suggested demand in the market. The revenue that flooded in for many projects, however, did not manage to trickle down to pay laborers' wages or purchase needed safety gear and equipment for them.
Saturday, 20 May 2006So read the news on one fine May day. The accident happened sometime during the night. Nighttime construction was a hallmark of not only the JBR but of the entire Dubai construction scene. It was not to spare the workers the high daytime temperatures, but to meet the deadlines that inexperience and delays in sourcing materials and equipment inevitably led to. His body was discovered at around 5 am the following morning. Was his fall not seen by anyone when it happened? Was he walking or working alone high atop the skeletal structure? Shrouded in mystery as many deaths, injuries and accidents were, at least this one made the news.
Another worker dies on JBR site
Another worker has died on Arabtec’s Jumeirah Beach Residence site. Last month, two more workers were killed when the cradle in which they were working, collapsed. The man died on building 62 of the massive Dubai construction site. He is understood to have fallen to his death at some point during the nightshift of 13 May. His body was discovered at around 5 am the following morning. A company spokesman confirmed that an investigation was underway but that its findings had so far been inconclusive.
JBR was an impressive building site. The finished property would be stellar, as could be said of many of Dubai's new developments. Delays would be the order of the day and finished properties would almost surely fail the snagging processes. Numerous defects would be found in materials and workmanship. But at the end of the day, these would be impressive and attractive properties. Enough money was being paid by investors to assure as much. But there was also a high price being paid in blood, sweat and tears. Workers would be injured or grow ill without access to adequate medical care. Like most other expenses, charges for doctor visits were the responsibility of the laborers. Even in the case of an accident onsite, companies often required workers to reimburse it for the cost of treatment, which would be deducted from wages. A worker dare not get injured or grow ill for the double burden of suffering physically while bearing the resulting financial burden. For losing additional days or weeks of pay for not being able to work, he could well be driven into a cycle of debt, if not already up to his neck in it.
Some would even consider the fallen worker, the luckier one. There were suicides. Perhaps this might explain the mysterious death of the worker not found until morning. While the most unlucky would meet their deaths while building Dubai's towering residences, more would suffer from injuries, minor to severe, and nearly all would bear the hardship of poor living and working conditions and wages that, when paid, often still left them in debt and poverty.
In the United States a $5-$6 per hour minimum wage is lamented for not being enough to keep a small family above the poverty level. Construction laborers in the UAE earn 1/10th of that, while in many respects the cost of living in the UAE is comparable to that of any industrialized country. The UAE, as a country, is relatively wealthy, and the wages of the its wage-earners clearly reflect this. The many thousands at the bottom, however, who make-up over 20% of the work force, earn wages comarable to the poorest of third world countries.
Pay day on 1 May 2006 meant another $22,000 installment to be paid out on my small luxury apartment. That single installment would pay the salaries of 146 workers for a month. Using the same math, over the 4 years it might take to build the tower, only 5% of my total spend could employ 6 workers throughout the duration, leaving over 95% to pay for whatever other cost there were associated with constructing a tower. Six workers--so what? Extrapolating that figure to cover all units in the tower, just 5% of the total payment being made would cover the salaries of some 4000 laborers over the full 48 month duration. There will never be 4000 workers on the MAG 218 site. At best the maximum number of laborers at any one time would be 1/10th of that. The cost of labor on the project, therefore, would hardly amount to even 2 or 3% of the total cost. The cost of office supplies to the company would probably be greater.
Pay day for Mohammed, Abdulla, Rajeesh, Kumar, Harinder and any of the countless other laborers at the tower sites scattered across the Dubai Marina, and the whole of the UAE, would be about $150 for the month, $5 a day or just $0.60 per hour for toiling in the heat and dust.
1759 (this post), total 11,957 words
Chapter 8: Shift in Focus
Technorati Tags: Jumeirah Beach Residences, laborer wages in the UAE, construction costs in the UAE, condominium prices
posted by B.D. at Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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