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Reckoning with high noon — finally IT WAS the British actor, dramatist and playwright, Noel Coward, born in 1899, who wrote an amusing song about the English taking no notice of the weather in fiery climates on their colonial travels. Coward said that while the natives of hot countries always insisted on taking a nap or a siesta, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” Earlier this week we had the hottest day of the summer season so far. It reached 45C here in Dubai and was three degrees warmer 100 km away at the desert city of Al Ain, which does not have the benefit of sea breezes. I can’t say I really noticed it was all that hot, which is not really surprising because — like so many here — I left my airconditioned home in the early morning, got into my airconditioned car, and spent a long day in front of the computer in the airconditioned office, not emerging until the relative cool of the evening. There is little doubt that had I ventured outside at any time, I would have suffered, if only for a few minutes. Many years ago, I was chatting to an old Dubai man and asked him about his early days before oil changed the face of this part of the world. The man lived in a palm frond hut on the beach and eked out a living doing a bit of fishing; it was before the days of electricity. “What was it like in the summers?” I asked. “Oh,” he replied. “Dubai wasn’t hot in those days. We only realized it was hot when the first airconditioners arrived.” Well, times change and today we all know it is hot — very, very hot. And it is a fact that has, at long last, been officially recognized by the government. Suddenly, a week ago, the UAE minister of labour announced that during July and August labourers working on construction sites would have to take a rest between 12.30 and 4.30pm. There are thousands and thousands of labourers, almost all from South Asia, working on Dubai’s numerous construction projects — indeed the whole city resembles one big building site. They toil away for long hours and earn around $180 a month, although some receive a lot less. Over the years there have been occasional letters to newspapers highlighting the poor conditions in which many of them work and live — and the fact that they are forced to work under the blazing sun — but most of us drive luxuriously by the construction areas and see them digging trenches across the sandy wastes with only the briefest of feelings of guilt. So the announcement that the government was suddenly showing concern about their plight has caused quite a stir. In rather typical fashion of the way things happen here, there was no public discussion about the issue, no consultation with the industry and, it goes without saying, no consultation with the workers, many of whom had no idea of the ruling until they were told by reporters seeking quotes. Construction companies also heard about the ruling only through the newspapers and there was inevitably confusion about what they should do; so the majority carried on as normal. Most of us thought it was fairly straightforward — after all, an order saying no work between the stated hours in July and August doesn’t seem open to misinterpretation. But the construction companies wanted to know whether this meant the whole site had to close down, or did it mean just those who were working without shade? And then they said that it wasn’t possible to implement the order because they had tight deadlines to meet and interrupting work would mean they couldn’t adhere to schedules and they would be faced with penalty clauses from their clients. And, in any case, what would the labourers do with four hours in the middle of the day? It might be OK if their accommodation camps were nearby, but some are bussed in from long distances, and the construction sites don’t have anywhere for them to rest. Some of the bigger companies, however, took the order seriously, instituted the four-hour break, and then said the labourers had to work an extra four hours at the end of the day, meaning they were still there at 11pm, having started at 7am. And, inevitably perhaps, at this point people living near the construction sites started complaining about the noise from the machinery keeping them from sleeping. Well, whatever confusion there is — and it could have been avoided with proper consultation — the labour ministry is starting to show it is serious about implementing the order by sending inspectors to construction sites all over the country. Companies are being fined and told that they will have problems getting visas for more workers in future unless they comply. And already hospitals are reporting that the number of sunstroke cases has dropped sharply. What is still puzzling many people is why the government decided to act now, and so suddenly. There is no doubt that such a measure was long overdue purely on humanitarian grounds and one would like to think that that was the sole reason. But could there have been pressure from elsewhere? As the UAE (Dubai particularly) increasingly becomes a centre for international tourism, commerce and finance, it has become more and more sensitive about its image in the world. One example of this was the recent ban on children being employed as camel jockeys and I believe that treatment of the country’s labourers could be another. Representatives from the International Labour Organization made a visit a few weeks ago and among the topics discussed were bringing the UAE’s restrictive employment laws in line with international agreements. Also on the agenda was the subject of labour unions which are currently banned — there is a tendency for anyone instigating industrial action to find themselves on a plane with a one-way ticket home. Dubai is an exciting place to be in, but it can also be a hard life at the bottom of the pile. Whatever the reason for the work-break order, it is good to know that the daily grind may have got just a little easier for those whose manual efforts in tough conditions are building this rich city. Let’s leave the midday scorchers to mad dogs and Englishmen. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
