Midnight Notes, “Part One: Oil Workers and Oil Wars,” article 2, “To Saudi with Love: Working Class Composition in the Mideast.”  pp. 23-38, in Midnight Notes, Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992, Boston: Autonomedia, 1992.

 

Main Point

 

This article discusses the stratification and separation of migrant workers and the poor conditions provided to them in the Middle East. These conditions and stratifications have been imposed by oil producing nations and are supported by oil importing countries in order to minimize costs.  The article stresses the corrupt way in which governments export and import migrant workers as indentured servants in order to increase trade or decrease cost, and it shows the despondency of these workers to improve their situation. 

 

Summary

 

The conditions under which labor has been organized in the Gulf region is comparable to that of Nazi, Stalinist, and Apartheid labor structures.  75 percent of the labor force in the Gulf are immigrants primarily from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.  These workers are mostly young men who come to the Gulf in order to earn higher wages and flee destitution and repression in their own countries.

 

Workers of the World

 

Where the different immigrant groups are sent in the Gulf are largely determined by the areas which were colonized by Western countries.  The first problem that American and British oil companies faced was a need for labor.  Locals were small in number and resistant to working in the oil industry.  Thus it was necessary to bring in migrant workers and organize them in a way to avoid problems of opposition.  Organization of the labor force was often outlawed and the different ethnicities and races of workers were structured in a way that made the formation of labor unions difficult.

 

The migrant labor force began with Indians brought by the British to work in the oil fields, but once India gained independence and Israel formed.  Oil companies began hiring Arabs that were in search of jobs, refugees, or exiled from their homeland.  The dramatic increase in oil prices in the 1970’s caused the size and diversity of the labor market and migrant workers to increase vastly.  The logic of the international division of labor is such that as workers in one country are forced to migrate and service the princes and oil companies of the Gulf, so they are replaced by other workers of the world.

 

Dealers in Human Cargo

 

Workers are often brought to the Gulf by state-operated agencies or by private companies that are given contracts from the oil corporations or directly from the Gulf state in order to recruit employment.  The contractors charge expensive amounts of money to prospective workers that can take numerous years to pay off, which cause workers to work more and often results in the workers paying fees just to find themselves stranded.  Workers are often exploited to such a degree that governments are forced to intercede.  It is also not unusual for a worker to find upon his/her arrival that the terms expressed in their contract have changed, which usually results in longer hours and lower wages.  This is referred to as contract substitution.

 

There are also a large number of unofficial workers that migrate there in order to find jobs.  They use various methods to arrive at the Gulf and once there they can obtain false documents and find work through agents that specifically deal in employing illegal immigrants.  The level of exploitation of the illegal workers are much harsher than the legitimate workers.

 

Indentured Servitude

 

Working conditions in the Gulf were extremely poor, the work was dangerous, the workers worked long hours for little money, and as immigrants, they had very few legal rights. 

 

They must be sponsored by a local employer and cannot legally organize trade unions, own property, switch jobs, stay in the country without working or leave without the permission of their boss.  Indeed, passports are usually taken away upon employment.  Medical care is often poor or non-existent, wages are commonly withheld, and benefits, such as free passage home or annual leave, are frequently blocked.  If workers protest, they can be easily arrested, jailed, ill-treated and repatriated.

 

If the immigrants are not renting from private landlords (which costs about 60 percent of their salary), they are often placed in labor camps that are surrounded by barbed wire and security.  These labor camps are usually 36 man dorms with one bathroom, and may actually have laundry facilities, a movie theater, a cafeteria, and a weight-lifting room.  Contractor camps (which are more widespread) are even worse, with people living in metal shacks, trailers, tents, or huts with a shortage of blankets, fans, and sanitation facilities.  Most migrants work 10-16 hours a day, every day (often without holidays), with one day off each month to run errands. They are deprived of social security and are also frequently assaulted, harassed, or tortured. 

 

Incomes are often based on the worker’s race or ethnicity, with the Europeans and Americans earning the most, then the Arabs, and then the Asians.  The Asians are stratified so that Koreans earn the most, then Indians, Filipinos, Pakistanis, and Thais, and the lowest paid are the Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis.  This in addition to the division of labor among the immigrant groups pits each ethnic group against the others and discourages organization.  The Gulf leaders’ avoidance on relying on a single ethnic, religions, or national group of immigrants is also a key factor in the governments’ control over labor.  In general, the closer the cultural similarity, the more the local rulers felt threatened. 

 

Women Workers

 

Women are mostly employed in the Gulf area as domestic servants, and are generally from the countries of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.  They are often raped, assaulted, harassed, and underpaid, also seeking employment through recruitment agencies through which exploitation is common.  Sri Lanka is the largest source of domestic workers, supply enough to have a substantial effect on the Sri Lankan economy.  Runaways are common, but the countries that the workers are from often do very little about these horrible conditions unless they are forced to due to the effect that the workers have on the country’s economy.  Exporting workers to the Gulf states is beneficial because it decreases the unemployment rate and receives revenues through worker’s payments.

 

Decomposition and Militarization

 

Despite the measures that the Gulf states have taken to prevent it, many groups have been able to organize their efforts in order to challenge the exploitation and poor conditions.  This was constrained by the fall in oil prices in the early 1980’s, but resurged later on that decade.  Corresponding with this resurgence were large changes in the oil industry; with the advancement of technology, more skilled workers were needed in relation to unskilled workers.  There were also cases of large gatherings of external groups seeking to make economic, moral, and political demands on the land.  Many of these problems that the Gulf state faced, however, was crushed effectively by the Gulf War.  Without militarization, the problem may have escalated to a point that would disrupt the structure of labor and prosperity in the Gulf.

 

~Summary by Jean Miaw