Migrant Workers and Labor Unions in the Gulf: An Interview with Karim Radhi

[Screenshot of \"Bahraini Labours\" 11th Issue, 2007, from www.gftu.org] [Screenshot of \"Bahraini Labours\" 11th Issue, 2007, from www.gftu.org]

Migrant Workers and Labor Unions in the Gulf: An Interview with Karim Radhi

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[In this Migrant Rights interview, trade union activist Karim Radhi focuses on the cultural attitudes toward migrant laborers in the Gulf, which he sees as the primary obstacle to their integration into any workers’ movement there. The interview first appeared in Arabic and was later translated by Saqer Almarri.]


In this interview, the poet and trade union activist Karim Radhi, of the Secretariat of the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions, speaks on the situation of migrant workers in Bahrain and the efforts and difficulties of including them in the workers’ movement. Radhi calls for a revision of cultural attitudes in order to stop excluding migrants from legal frameworks and society. Radhi also believes that migrant workers should be at the center of the political and legal activity in the Gulf since they make up the largest proportion of residents in the Gulf countries.

Migrant Rights (MR): Some believe that the legal exclusion of migrant workers and the threat of deportation prevent them from participating in trade unions. How do you deal with such a reality?

Karim Radhi (KR): Unfortunately, the issue is far more serious than simply politics or activism. The issue is cultural, and changing the culture is the most difficult endeavor. The Gulf/Khaleeji citizen, unfortunately, believes that it is normal for migrant workers to suffer. The Khaleejis believes that they are being hospitable when offering them a job in their country. Even when they empathize with the migrant workers, this empathy is more like pitying migrant workers. This empathy does not come from the belief that they should have the same rights as Gulf citizens, such as a fair wage, decent housing, healthy nutrition, and a good job. They accuse migrant workers of crowding the job market and the available services, when the reality is that they cannot live without their existence. Even the less affluent Gulf citizens today cannot live without a migrant worker. If you want to know about this condescending attitude, look no further than the articles, papers, and studies published. The proportion of those published discussing migrant workers legally and sociologically is much less than those that discuss the remittances sent back by migrant workers to their families, or the pressure migrant workers put on public services. I believe that the amount of migrant workers’ remittances is not as much as the foreign investments owned by Gulf citizens outside of the Gulf region. Think about how we treat workers sending money back to their families, for whom they have migrated in the first place, and compare that to how we treat local investors who prefer to invest their capital outside their country.

This cultural attitude must change. The term “foreigner” must be removed from the vocabulary of activists working with workers, as well as the term “servants,” it must be replaced with “domestic workers.” Trade union activists must shake off the condescending attitude that has become a part of the Khaleeji culture. We should consider that the right to transfer oneself from one job to another is the same as the right to transfer one’s capital. This is not a shameful thing to do, nor an invasion, or an occupation, but rather each person’s natural search for a living. Gulf citizens should remember that they too were migrants in the recent past. They had migrated from Kuwait to Bahrain, Bahrain to Oman, as well as to the Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and vice versa. Migration is a fundamental part of our history.

If we do not change this aspect of our culture first, we will not be able to deal with this reality. This is imperative before anything else. Even for us as union or social activists, how could we conduct our activism and hold sessions on domestic workers or migrant workers and call them “foreigners,” speak of them from the perspective of employers, as simple people who are uneducated in the trade union mode of thinking, and describe domestic workers as “servants that run away,” etc. 

MR: We have noticed that some civil society groups in Kuwait and Bahrain, such as the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFTBU), give attention to legislation dealing with migrant laborers. What, in your view, is the obstacle that prevents the federations and trade unions in the Gulf from including migrants in their union activity?

KR: Just as I have mentioned before, there are a number of laws in some of the Gulf countries that restrict the membership of migrant workers in trade unions. There are even laws that restrict the establishment of trade unions even for citizens. The issue for us is whether we even have the will in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman to allow migrant workers to participate in trade unions. This should be regardless of legislation, for it is us who writes the legislations. When the trade union movement in Kuwait tried to deal with the situation of migrant workers, they established an office with the General Federation in order to protect the rights of migrant workers. However, is the union movement in Kuwait ready to take a step further? In Bahrain, the king established the trade union law in Edict 33 of 2002. The law was the product of legislative and political reform. It is considered a progressive law as it did not mention the nationality of the union members. However on a practical level, union activists do not show much enthusiasm for or benefit in attracting migrant workers into the unions. In fact, it is unfortunate that even Arab countries with migrating citizens have now become importers of migrant workers from Asia, and refuse to allow the latter to organize themselves into trade unions.

MR: Does the General Federation of Workers Trade Unions organize on behalf of domestic workers?

KR: Yes, we do. However, we should be aware of the level of work done in any of the union federations in the Gulf today. We must also know whether this federation is serious in its organizing for migrant workers, and does not consider it a minor focus on the side of its major focus. Trade unions should consider this a main focus, and establish units or offices that focus on organizing migrant workers and exerting pressure to amend domestic legislation to cover migrant workers, especially domestic workers, along with organizing with workers’ unions in the originating countries. It is also important to end this attitude of looking down on migrants and ignoring their issues. The work is extremely large, and a part of what has kept many Gulf citizens away from it is the undeniable fact that migrant workers represent more than seventy-five percent of workers in Bahrain. This means that it must be the main focus of our work. Domestic workers comprise about fifteen percent of workers, and the fact is that we, as union activists, employ domestic workers in our own homes. Those domestic workers have rights that are forgotten. Our work as union federations will remain minor unless we cooperate with other unions, women’s societies, and the rest of civil society to create social pressure as a group in order to protect the rights of domestic workers, and to amend our legislation in order to achieve that.

MR: Do you believe that Bahraini labor laws would soon include domestic workers instead of the current legal exclusion?

KR: The previous labor law was mended by a new law, 36 of 2012, which in fact included domestic workers in much of the articles. The previous law almost excluded domestic workers entirely. This is good progress, but it falls short of covering their rights entirely. Also those who do not organize do not have a voice, and therefore do not have any rights. The best labor laws will not be useful unless there is a strong union to protect those domestic workers. You are aware of the grave situations that beset domestic workers, even though media organizations only focuses on these workers’ mistakes or crimes against the families and their children. These crimes are of course unacceptable, however, media outlets rarely ever discusses our own crimes and mistakes toward the domestic workers. 

MR: What are the recent problems facing migrant workers and are there any suggested legislations or solutions for these problems?

KR: Among the biggest problems faced by migrant workers is, as I have just mentioned, our culture, which looks down upon these workers. There is also the problem of slum housing, which catch fire in the winter when unsafe heating appliances are used, or collapse on the people residing within them. There is also the problem of non-payment of wages because of the funder’s late payment to contractors, who in turn delay the payment of wages to workers. There is a law that penalizes employers for late payment of wages, but it is rarely applied, and in many cases the workers end up being sent back home without receiving their compensation. We have a program to attract migrant workers into the trade unions but it is not large enough or sophisticated enough to do so rapidly. Political events of the last few years unfortunately took away much light from the situation of migrant workers. The opposition and the government should both keep migrant workers away from the effects of political events, for the migrants came here to seek a living. Among the worst things legislatively is a parliament that is controlled by businessmen and capitalists who exploit migrant workers. This is the case in both the elected lower house, as well as the appointed upper house of parliament. Both houses of parliament in 2011 removed an article from the labor laws that allowed migrant workers the freedom to move from one employer to another without the approval of the original employer. And recently the two houses produced a farcical law that prohibits foreigners from driving. This law was produced in a country that has the worst public transportation network. Most migrant workers are forced to use private cars to carpool to and from work. It may be said that this is among the laws that were prehistoric, just like the parliament that produced it!

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412