UAE | Employment
Drive to better quality of life of contractual workers
The UAE is launching an initiative to improve the quality of life and work of Asian contract workers in the UAE.
- WAM
- Published: 23:56 October 30, 2008
Manila: The UAE is launching an initiative to improve the quality of life and work of Asian contract workers in the UAE.
Saqr Gobash, the Minister of Labour, made the announcement in Manila on Thursday.
Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), Gobash outlined the pilot project to survey and document best practices in the management of the temporary contractual employment cycle.
Gobash told the plenary session of the forum, which was attended by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, and Alberto Romulo, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, that the UAE government took the initiative after consultations with other GCC member states.
It will propose to the governments of India and the Philippines the setting up of a pilot project to survey and document best practices in the management of the temporary contractual employment cycle.
The forum was inaugurated by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo on Wednesday.
The governments of the UAE, India and the Philippines have now agreed to collaborate towards the development of such a pilot project with expert input from the Arab Labour Organisation, International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation on Migration, Gobash said.
The overall goal of the project is to test a range of practical measures that will serve to improve the quality of life and work of contractual workers.
The project seeks first of all to improve the quality of recruitment, induction and other pre-deployment processes, and then to provide the workers with decent working and living conditions during their temporary contractual employment and residency in the host country.
Some 3,000 workers from India and the Philippines will participate in this pilot project, which will present a model for the future measures to improve the living conditions of all contractual workers, Gobash said.
These workers will come to the UAE on three-year work contracts and one the contracts expire they will go home to take part in the development of their countries, without becoming immigrants.
"We need workers who understand our culture and traditions and respect them, and we need them to be aware of whom they work for and what they do," Gobash said.
Director General of the International Organisation for Migration William Lacy Swing welcomed the initiative.
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