The article reports that raw sewage was overflowing from septic tanks in workers’ accommodation because the landlord had not paid his electricity bills. One worker reported “Some of us have to sleep on the rooftop to escape from the sweltering heat. There has been no power in the camp for the past week and the conditions are completely disgusting.”

Approximately 500 workers downed tools on Saturday and could be found protesting on the streets of the Al Quoz Industrial Area where the camp is located. Police were called yesterday to get the men back into their camp.

Gunal Construction reported that they had been paying for the electricity, but that the landlord had defaulted on bills to the tune of Dh2 million (£371k). The company also said that they had put an urgent request into the Ministry of Labour to be allowed to install generators at the camp.

Impactt are delighted to see that the workers of Dubai’s construction sites are taking direct action to highlight the poor conditions they are experiencing. With global focus on labour camp conditions in Dubai, as a result of the recent Panorama expose, now is the prime time for workers to be heard.

After last year’s Primark on the Rack, BBC Panorama has been investigating labour standards again. This time the BBC exposé focuses on the conditions of migrant workers building luxury estates in Dubai. Dubai is a by-word for 1^st world seven-star living, with developments endorsed by footballer Michael Owen, cricketer Andrew Flintoff and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. But behind the façade migrant workers face 3^rd world wages and conditions.

Eighty percent of Dubai’s population are migrants, mainly from the Asian sub-continent, lured to Dubai by employment agents selling the dream of making good money of 1500 dirham (£277.54) a month. But, on arrival, the dream rapidly becomes a nightmare. Wages are less than half the promised level, Panorama exposed workers being paid £120 per month, working 12 hour shifts, six days a week. At these rates workers could only afford to eat meat two or three times a month. And it gets worse, Panorama also found workers working unpaid to repay the £2000 ‘transit fees’ they owe to the employment agency for getting them the ‘dream job’ in the first place.

In labour camps belonging to Arabtec Construction, a sub-contractor to the Jumeriah Golf Estates, Panorama found workers accommodation overflowing with sewage and persuaded a recruitment agent to tell her story

And things are getting worse, the global financial downturn has led to thousands of workers losing their jobs and being sent back to their home countries prematurely. Not only do they often still owe the employment agents their ‘transit fee’, but their home economies are suffering from the reduction in remittances being sent back on a monthly basis.

Impactt’s own experience in Dubai underlines that migrant workers’ jobs are very poor quality.  Far from being better off than they would be at home, the balance has tipped and a migrant job is often the gateway to poverty and despair.   

Clearly something must be done, and we believe that it is possible to make change. There are cost-effective ways for companies using migrant labour to have an impact on basic conditions for workers, particularly in accommodation standards, payment of transit fees and working hours. All that is needed is the determination to change the current business model.

As a first step, it is vital to establish an industry-wide dialogue to harness the power of the construction giants, the contractors and the UAE government to create a new framework for managing migrant labour in Dubai. This should recognise the mutual dependency that exists between the industry and the workers, and be a vehicle for tackling the issues highlighted by the Panorama programme.

The Impactt Middle East and North Africa office opens in Dubai next week and will be constantly surrounded by migrant workers – in fact we overlook two buildings which are under construction. You can expect regular updates on the conditions these workers face and our efforts to improve them.

Our main beef with the programme was its failure to give workers a voice.  The only time any worker spoke was to confirm their age. We are therefore none the wiser about how workers (adults and children) felt about their situation.  Whilst the conditions shown in the film were far from ideal, the people stitching the garments may well be dependent on their earnings from this work.  Getting their view on how Primark could improve their lot would have been useful.  It would certainly have make it harder for the Tirapur Export Association to release a statement alleging that the children captured on film were not actually working.

Hand embellishment of garments in India is almost invariably subcontracted to informal units or homeworkers, carrying the risk of child labour.  We welcome the clear view Panorama gave us down these supply chains.  The overwhelming public and consumer reaction to the film has been to urge companies to stay in and work with their suppliers and workers on these difficult issues.  Criticism of Primark has been focused on the decision to ‘cut and run‘ rather than on the discovery of problems in the first place. Maybe it’s time to move on from denial and distancing towards a more grown-up approach of engagement and improvement.

Following the news stories last week and speculation in the Ethical Trading community, the BBC is set to show its investigation into the ethical standards of Primark’s supply chain this Monday at 9pm. A potentially controversial trailer is available on YouTube:

The footage shows outsourced finishing in the backstreet slums of India and child labour in Tamil refugee camps usually closed to outsiders. The programme uncovers organised middlemen running off-the-record order books for a factory supplying Primark and distributing finishing work amongst slum-workers.

The documentary raises important questions about low-cost fashion and how it is produced; but we wonder whether it is just low-cost fashion retailers who are vulnerable to these practices. This depiction is reminiscent of the Gap exposé last October which revealed child labour in unknown subcontracted factories. As we commented last year, if Gap could be caught in a situation like that, after developing arguably one of the most comprehensive ethical trading programmes in the industry, any company sourcing from India could be caught out. Clearly controlling supply chains is well-nigh impossible.  We at Impactt think that it is time for another approach.  The need is to identify these informal supply chains, which after all provide some income for very poor people, to develop ways to keep adults in the supply chain, but working under better conditions and to support working children back to school, whilst maintaining the family’s income.

Primark’s response to the allegations has been to drop three suppliers for using undeclared subcontractors. Primark have a point here, since the suppliers are in breach of their agreement – however, walking away is never going to solve the problem.  This type of action will leave adults without jobs and the children caught in the media glare in an even more vulnerable position.  To be fair, Primark has announced its intention to establish the ‘Primark Better Lives Foundation’, which will provide financial assistance to organisations devoted to improving the lives of young people; whether or not this will address the needs of the children found in their subcontracted factories remains to be seen.

This latest news only adds to the pressure on the company’s ethical standards following recent unwanted attention after the cancellation of Alexa Chung’s sweatshop experiment in Covent Garden entitled ‘The Devil Wears Primark’. The programme was cancelled by Channel 4 at very short notice at the beginning of June, leaving many viewers disappointed that a seemingly promising exposé of the garment industry was instead replaced by Without a Paddle – a film about a camping trip.

The child labour issue and the focus of the television documentary coincide with the release of a Primark video on its specially created ethics website ‘Ethical Primark’, which aims to dispel some of the assumptions about the company’s purchasing practices and how it manages to keep its prices so low. Entitled ‘How Do They Do It’ the video talks about the company’s business model – claiming that low margins, no advertising expenditure and economies of scale, rather than compromising on product quality or working conditions, help to keep prices down.