UAE | Employment
A learning trip with a workers accommodation inspector
Three workers' accommodations are what Fahd Esmail Mohammad, an inspector at Dubai Municipality, has to inspect on an average each day to ensure good living standards for workers in the emirate.
- By Wafa Issa, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:04 April 22, 2009
- Image Credit: Javed Nawab/Gulf News
- Dubai Municipality inspector Fahd Esmail Mohammad took Gulf News team along on an inspection tour in Al Qusais on Tuesday. The inspectors monitor everything from the availability of soaps in toilets to overcrowding in rooms.
Dubai: Three workers' accommodations are what Fahd Esmail Mohammad, an inspector at Dubai Municipality, has to inspect on an average each day to ensure good living standards for workers in the emirate.
There are currently more than 900 workers' accommodations in Dubai and there are 22 inspectors from the General Health and Safety Department at the municipality who must ensure that employers provide reasonable living standards for their workers.
The inspectors check everything from the availability of soaps in toilets to illegal partitions and over-crowding in rooms in each place.
Gulf News got an insight into the daily grind of the municipality's inspectors when our reporters were allowed to tag along with Fahd as he went about his job.
Fahd, a 28-year-old Emirati, has been working as a labour accommodation inspector for five years and today he is the officer in charge of the municipality's team in the Deira area which comprises 11 people.
"Everybody has a right for a decent living and I personally get sad when I see a labourer's rights being violated. I do anything in my authority to prevent these violations. But at the same time, I feel that international media coverage of labourers' rights violations in the UAE are blown out of proportions," said Fahd.
Fahd gets to know which accommodations he has been assigned through a palm-sized computer connected to the municipality's database and the device also allows him to report back after he has completed each visit. A check list of 90 health and safety requirements must be looked at after each visit.
Fahd took the Gulf News team to a labour accommodation provided by a supermarket chain.
He asked for an inspection card on which previous violations or remarks had been marked before commencing the tour.
In his report, he wrote: "The accommodation is in good condition and clean but some walls must be painted, AC filter must be cleaned, one of the water coolers is dirty and carpets and plastic [not allowed in labour accommodations] were found on the floor. The carpet violations acquire a fine as the company was warned once before about it."
"A problem we face many times is that the accommodation boss does not report violations and fines to the company owner, fearing he will get his salary cut. The owner only gets to know about the condition of the accommodation when we summon him to the municipality," he said, adding that another bottleneck arose was when the accommodation in-charge could not speak Arabic or English.
Asked if the accommodations he visited were generally as clean as the one we had just visited, Fahd said: "You think that I contacted the companies and told them that the media will be around. No, things have improved a lot ... as we closely monitor them ... and companies now have greater awareness of health and safety standards."
Main criteria: Minimum bed space
Among the main health and safety criteria municipality inspectors watch out for are: concrete buildings, a suitable area to prepare food and a minimum space of 40 square feet for each worker in the bedroom.
Fines are imposed for some violations (in case of repeat offences, the penalty is doubled).
After three fines for the same violation, the company owner is summoned to the municipality and, if he fails to ensure a change for the better within a specific period, all the firm's transactions get stopped at the economic department.
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