Even after promises, Dubai Expo workers face hardships
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Intent on making a flawless impression as the first host of the world’s fair in the Middle East, Dubai poured billions of dollars into the pandemic-delayed Expo 2020, hoping to attract 25 million visitors to its pristine fairgrounds and jubilant festivities that opened last month.
Propping up the world’s fair that began Oct. 1 and runs until March 31, 2022, is the United Arab Emirates’ contentious labor system that long has drawn accusations of mistreating workers.
Dubai, highly sensitive to its image, is aware that Expo is drawing attention to its labor practices.
It has held companies on the project to higher-than-normal standards of worker treatment. Contractors offer better wages and benefits to Expo workers, compared with elsewhere in the country, and many say they are grateful for the jobs.
But violations have persisted, according to human rights groups and interviews with over two dozen workers by Associated Press. Advocates blame the UAE’s labor sponsorship system that relies on chains of foreign subcontractors, ties workers’ residency to their jobs and gives outsize power to employers.
Workers say they have had to pay exorbitant, illegal fees to local recruiters to work at the world’s fair; employers have confiscated their passports; promises are broken on wages; living conditions are crowded and unsanitary; food is substandard or expensive; and there are 70-hour workweeks in sometimes brutal heat.
“You can have the best standards in the world, but if you have this inherent power imbalance, workers are in a situation where they’re at risk of exploitation all the time,” said Mustafa Qadri, executive director of Equidem, a labor rights consultancy that recently reported on Expo workers’ mistreatment during the pandemic.
Expo did not answer any questions from the AP about alleged worker mistreatment, including reports of illegal recruitment fees and confiscated passports.
Equidem documented multiple cases of abuse at Expo’s construction site when the pandemic began. Workers described going hungry as employers withheld up to five months of promised wages and termination benefits.
Some were deprived of their documents, unable to change jobs or leave the country. Many lived in packed accommodations, in one case with over 80 people sharing a single toilet.
Expo workers interviewed by the AP described other forms of exploitation, with inadequate food a central concern. Many complained of long hours in withering heat. Several workers from West Africa and Pakistan said they’d paid hundreds of dollars to recruiters.
Eric, a cleaner from Cameroon, said he and his colleagues protested to Dubai-based Emrill Services about expensive food and the lack of kitchen access but got no response. They make less than $300 a month, with no food allowance. Emrill promised to investigate the complaints.