Managers at BK Gulf, a joint venture company run by UK-based construction firm Balfour Beatty, alerted police to the strike at a site where a new university campus in Abu Dhabi was being built. BK Gulf is co-owned by Glasgow-based Balfour Beatty PLC, one of the UK's largest infrastructure companies, with pre-tax profits of £187m in 2013. The "BK" in BK Gulf is an abbreviation for Balfour Kilpatrick, which has now been consumed into its parent company, Balfour Beatty.
Witnesses say BK Gulf videotaped striking workers last October before police kicked down doors and arrested dozens. Others were tricked into meetings with management, only to find police waiting for them. Many of those arrested described being slapped, beaten and kicked at the largest prison in Dubai, which shares federal labour laws with Abu Dhabi. Some begged the company to intervene. Several said that a British manager informed of the abuse refused to act to stop it. One worker frantically made calls to BK Gulf managers to beg them for help. He got through to a construction manager at the Atlantis Hotel on Dubai's artificial palm-shaped island. The manager told him to do what the police wanted and to stay quiet, he claimed.
"It was the first time in my adult life that I cried, because I was so scared," said Matur Rehman, an NYU Abu Dhabi worker deported back to Bangladesh. "One police officer was shouting, 'Are you a strike leader? Are you a strike leader?' And the other one beat me with his shoe and slapped me on the neck. I was crying and begging him to stop," he said.
Another Bangladeshi, Inam Ul Hacq, from a different Dubai camp, said he was slapped during interrogation. "An Arab man in plain clothes was shouting: 'Who told you about the strike? Who told you about the strike?' and he was hitting me."
In all, more than 3,000 men were on strike for two days, most of them working on the NYU project on Saadiyat Island. Three hundred BK workers were deported as punishment for refusing to work, according to the workers and a site supervisor. All the men were striking for an increase in their six-day salary from £121 a month to £162.
BK Gulf managers merely acted in accordance with local law. They say that in the UAE, where striking is illegal, companies are obliged to report the formation of any workers' committee to the authorities. The allegations against BK Gulf suggest that, at present, Western businesses and institutions are unable or unwilling to prevent such abuse. Several of the eyewitnesses said a British construction manager at the company knew of the arrests among the 3,000 NYU workers on strike, but would not intervene.
Nick McGeehan, Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, said "For far too long companies have just hoped that the problem would go away and that standards would get better, but they're not getting better. It's the same stories over and over again... this is a lucrative market, one of the most lucrative in the world... you cannot operate in the UAE and adhere to the codes of responsibility that they claim to...”
BK Gulf's work is part of the Saadiyat Island construction project. Saadiyat has instead drawn unwelcome fresh attention to that pattern of abuse, with reports of the routine confiscation of workers' passports upon arrival in the country and claims that a code of practice governing the treatment of workers has been repeatedly breached.
From here
Witnesses say BK Gulf videotaped striking workers last October before police kicked down doors and arrested dozens. Others were tricked into meetings with management, only to find police waiting for them. Many of those arrested described being slapped, beaten and kicked at the largest prison in Dubai, which shares federal labour laws with Abu Dhabi. Some begged the company to intervene. Several said that a British manager informed of the abuse refused to act to stop it. One worker frantically made calls to BK Gulf managers to beg them for help. He got through to a construction manager at the Atlantis Hotel on Dubai's artificial palm-shaped island. The manager told him to do what the police wanted and to stay quiet, he claimed.
"It was the first time in my adult life that I cried, because I was so scared," said Matur Rehman, an NYU Abu Dhabi worker deported back to Bangladesh. "One police officer was shouting, 'Are you a strike leader? Are you a strike leader?' And the other one beat me with his shoe and slapped me on the neck. I was crying and begging him to stop," he said.
Another Bangladeshi, Inam Ul Hacq, from a different Dubai camp, said he was slapped during interrogation. "An Arab man in plain clothes was shouting: 'Who told you about the strike? Who told you about the strike?' and he was hitting me."
In all, more than 3,000 men were on strike for two days, most of them working on the NYU project on Saadiyat Island. Three hundred BK workers were deported as punishment for refusing to work, according to the workers and a site supervisor. All the men were striking for an increase in their six-day salary from £121 a month to £162.
BK Gulf managers merely acted in accordance with local law. They say that in the UAE, where striking is illegal, companies are obliged to report the formation of any workers' committee to the authorities. The allegations against BK Gulf suggest that, at present, Western businesses and institutions are unable or unwilling to prevent such abuse. Several of the eyewitnesses said a British construction manager at the company knew of the arrests among the 3,000 NYU workers on strike, but would not intervene.
Nick McGeehan, Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, said "For far too long companies have just hoped that the problem would go away and that standards would get better, but they're not getting better. It's the same stories over and over again... this is a lucrative market, one of the most lucrative in the world... you cannot operate in the UAE and adhere to the codes of responsibility that they claim to...”
BK Gulf's work is part of the Saadiyat Island construction project. Saadiyat has instead drawn unwelcome fresh attention to that pattern of abuse, with reports of the routine confiscation of workers' passports upon arrival in the country and claims that a code of practice governing the treatment of workers has been repeatedly breached.
From here
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