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Originally Posted by sclitheroe
What of the alleged near-slave labor conditions for the massive immigrant labour force? I haven't been there, so its hard to get a balanced perspective, but by many accounts its pretty bad.
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It's a big issue because they need so much labour and folks from nearby countries flock there for work. In the early days of the boom, it was easy for companies to exploit workers. People weren't being paid, being paid miniscule amounts, their passports and visas were being confiscated, etc. But the UAE government has been addressing this and some measures have been implemented. Every employee must now have a local bank account into which they are paid and this is monitored by the labour dept to ensure payment is being made. Every employee has a labour card which helps them track who is working in the UAE and for who.
Of course this doesn't include the "casual labour" market, which consists of illegals that work under the table. I'm not exactly sure what the government's approach on that is, as it doesn't really affect me, but it's a problem many countries face, including the USA with the illegal Mexicans.
