WHEN there is excess labour, compared to capital, the price (or wage) that labour can command, in a capitalist market-based system, will be low. There is no guarantee that the price would even be enough to allow people medium- to long-term survival. For unskilled labour the wage might drop to the level that shortens life spans and gives the labourers just enough time to reproduce the next generation of workers before becoming useless for the employer.

Pointing this out in all its grimness was one of the contributions that Karl Marx made through his writings. The worker is good only as long as he/she can work, and will be paid only as much as the demand/supply market clearance model suggests, and with excess supply this might mean very low wages, and definitely not a ‘living wage’.

The model is seen at work in many areas in our society. The daily-wage earners lining the streets in a number of places in big cities, looking for work but usually not finding much, are just the most visible reminders of this phenomenon.

The development of the welfare state, with rules about minimum wages, working conditions, social security, access to health and education, and rights for organisation and agitation, allowed some buffer for the workers. And in many advanced countries, especially in Europe, workers’ rights have, over time, become quite entrenched, and though contested at times, accepted.

Rashid worked for 10 years in an oil-rich country in the Gulf. He was a construction worker. After 10 years of hard labour he has been forced to retire and has returned to Pakistan. Today he is not able to do much. Due to the harsh working conditions he toiled under and with limited access to good food and quality healthcare, he developed a number of ailments that, over time, have become serious.

Today his liver function stands severely compromised, he has diabetes, his kidneys do not work well, his eyesight has deteriorated and these ailments have also contributed to serious cardiac issues. He started developing some of these medical conditions after only about five years of work but he did not seek medical care and did not let his employers know as he was afraid they would cancel his employment authorisation and send him back. But after 10 years, he could not go on.

Working in the open in the extreme summer weather of the Gulf is hard enough; to do so perched on a precarious scaffolding hundreds of feet above the ground, and with little access to water or nourishing food, is torturous. But such were the conditions Rashid had to face every day. And he could not afford to complain or do anything about it.

He was definitely able to earn more in those 10 years than he would have in Pakistan. But the cost has been high. Now his only hope is that his children will be able to benefit from his sacrifices and leapfrog forward owing to the better quality of education he has been able to give them.

Gulf countries provide chilling examples of unfettered market-based wages and work condition-determined outcomes. Many of these countries rely heavily on imported labour, with few rights if any, for most of the unskilled work.

The general impression is that in allowing labour to come to these countries they are doing a favour to labour from less developed countries in South and East Asia. The countries that send them and the labour that works in the Gulf in general, also share the impression. The result is that few rights are accorded to imported labour and there is almost no agitation on the issue even by the countries sending the labourers.

Pakistan relies heavily on foreign remittances, especially from the Gulf states. If insisting on better working conditions means fewer people being taken from Pakistan, the government will be loath to agitate on the issue with the concerned states. So, our need for having our people exploited, as Rashid was, is no different in practice from that of the people responsible for exploitation. People like Rashid will continue to pay the price. They will remain expendable.

Rashid was a construction worker at a large construction company. He still had some formal representation as he used to work in public spaces. Ann, a domestic worker, told me that her last employer, a European couple, used to beat her and verbally abuse her quite regularly. She felt she could not complain to her sponsor as that could mean she would have to go back home. Of course, there was no question of going to the local police. She just waited till her employer left and she was placed with a new employer.

The situation is, clearly, no better in the countries exporting labour. Rashid and Ann would not have left, had conditions been better. But that is not the issue. There is no inevitability about how the current institutional structures have been shaped. They are not ordained in any sense. They are the outcome of manmade architecture. They can be changed and have been changed in many countries.

The Gulf states have the resources to be able to do this. International organisations and countries sending labour should try to encourage a move in the right direction. The situation in labour-exporting countries is more complex.

Till the right to a life of dignity is accepted, the struggle must continue.

The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.