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Rioting workers get paid

Sean O'Driscoll looks at the trail of devastation after labourers protested
A Chinese state company has said it will complete payments to 600 workers today after mass riots broke out at a Jebel Ali labour camp in Dubai last week. Each of the workers is being taken to a Jebel Ali branch of HSBC bank to immediately cash cheques worth two months' pay. A company representative spoke after a camp supervisor told 7DAYS how construction managers used beds and tables to barricade themselves on a roof when hundreds of desperate Chinese workers rioted for hours on Wednes-day night over pay.

Shujiang Yu described workers trying to burn down the roof with a gas cylinder and throwing petrol bombs into the compound. He recalled hearing rumblings in the corridor and then a huge rush as hundreds of workers flooded into the No.1 CSHK Dubai labour camp. "They ran in everywhere, shouting and screaming for their money. I was in my office, with the door unlocked. They were searching for managers, throwing bottles, food, anything they could find. I am very, very lucky they didn't open this door." Shujiang said he waited terrified in his office for over 20 minutes while angry workers rioted in the open air courtyard inside the camp.

He climbed out his window and escaped to the roof just as his office was about to be overrun by labourers. He was met there by the Chinese state construction company's senior managers, who used bed, tables and chairs to block the stairs. But the workers, who had not been paid for four months, fought their way to the top, using bottles and bricks to fight back at the management. Shujiang said: "Our Chinese labour subcontractor did not pay these men because of the global economic crisis and we have not been paid by developers. The workers want everything from us, but we are caught in the middle," he said.

Shujiang recalled managers desperately smashing the floor tiles on the roof to use as weapons, firing them at workers who were bombard-ing them with flying bottles. He said one worker sustained a head injury from a missile. "What could we do? We didn't have a choice," he said. The trouble began at about 5.30pm in CSHK's second labour camp a few hundred feet way when workers smashed down the doors of supervisors' living accomm-odation, stealing electronic equipment and setting fire to managers' clothes. Their numbers swelled as they went to Labour Camp No.1 to confront CSHK management.

They smashed up the kitchen and threw food around the courtyard and management offices and hurled bottles onto the roof. Riot police rushed to the camp and the managers contacted the Chinese consul general, who organised a meeting between management, the subcontractor and workers.

The Dubai Permanent Committee for Labour Affairs has prepared a report on the incident in an attempt to stop future riots. Police said they did not make any arrests after securing the area as there had been no official complaints. Plans are afoot to pay the workers the remaining two months' wages.

© 7Days 2009