Too consumed trying to find the next canister of cooking gas...
Submitted by Sushma Joshi on Thu, 09/10/2008 - 08:55.
(Excerpt from The Observers France 24 )
While highly paid Western expatriate workers panic about their dipping investment accounts, most Nepali citizens are too consumed about trying to find the next canister of cooking gas in the festival season to worry much about the financial sector's bailout in America. (…) In the past two years even the cushioned middle-class of Kathmandu have suffered cooking gas and petrol shortages, rising food prices, and frequent strikes from one political party or another that has weakened the economy further.
With rising unemployment, thousands of ordinary Nepalese depend upon remittances sent to them by family members who work under blue collar jobs in tough conditions in the Gulf States, Malaysia, Western Europe and the USA. (…) Electricity, drinking water, and garbage collection continues to be a challenge in most Nepali urban and rural centres. (…)
The moment of economic and political transition has been mitigated through donor support from various European and Asian countries, but the equation of funds released to the work done remains disproportionate. (…) Until an accountable political and economic system is put in place, the people will see little benefit from the generous aid given by donor countries. Perhaps the lessons from the Nepali case could be used to understand this moment of crisis in America - do by all accounts inject money into the economy, but do ask who it goes to, and how it gets spent."
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From Dhaka to Baghdad in search of a living wage
Bangladeshis seeking to escape poverty back home prepared to do jobs that Iraqis do not want.
By Arthur MacMillan - BAGHDAD
Abul al-Hossein, fresh off a plane from Dhaka via Dubai, says he can drive cars, buses and trucks -- and he wants to do so in Iraq.
The 39-year-old Bangladeshi does not speak a word of Arabic however, making it highly unlikely he will find any such work in Baghdad.
Still when Hossein, a husband and father of three, is given the bad news he is quick to unveil Plan B -- he has also worked as a cook, specialising in Indian cuisine. He could do this instead.
"My family, my children are in desperate need of money," he says, sitting on a dust-caked sofa in the lobby of an eight-dollars-a-night hotel that is his temporary home.
"Even my wife said 'try and find a job in another country -- go to Iraq.' So I did."
It seems a surprising choice.
According to the United Nations, unemployment is running at 18 percent in Iraq -- with males aged between 15 and 29 years accounting for 57 percent of that figure.
Working in Iraq also comes at a price. Labourers from the Philippines, India, Nepal, Pakistan and China were all among those beheaded or abducted by insurgents in the years of chaos that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.
Security has since improved, but Iraq remains a dangerous country, with car bombings and suicide attacks part of daily life.
And even in war-ravaged Baghdad, a particularly bleak ambience prevails on Sadoun Street, where Hossein's hotel is located.
Crumbling pavements adjoin potholed roads. Sandbrick houses with scarred walls barely stand upright. Signs of economic resurgence are hard to find.
But in the bright sunshine of a spring day, Hossein and several of his countrymen staying at the Al Manar ("Lighthouse" in Arabic) Tourist Hotel have high hopes Baghdad will offer hard cash and prospects for a better life.
Massoud Monir, 32, was a foreman in charge of 20 workers at a ceramics factory in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, but still he could not earn enough to make ends meet.
Today, he works at a hotel in Baghdad.
"In Bangladesh it is so difficult to make a living, to get money, to get food," says Monir, who arrived here a month ago. "So I decided to come to Baghdad."
-- 'Not afraid of anything' --
Food prices nearly doubled in Bangladesh in 2008 after grain production was devastated by major flooding and a catastrophic cyclone the previous year -- 40 percent of the country's 160 million population earn less than a dollar a day.
Bangladeshis seeking to escape poverty back home are prepared to do the jobs that Iraqis do not want. Safety does not appear to be their top concern.
"I will work at any job," Hossein says. "I'm not afraid of anything."
And for local businessmen eager to cut costs, particularly those running restaurants and shops, they are a godsend.
"The Bangladeshi guys cost less and cause me fewer problems," says Raghid Abdul Razaq, who employs more than 100 people, predominantly Iraqis, at a fairground in Zawra Park in central Baghdad.
"There are some jobs that Iraqis simply won't do -- it is almost impossible to find an Iraqi who is willing to clean. They also find it difficult to serve."
Razaq, now searching for three more Bangladeshis to clean his premises, is also frank about the financial benefits of imported labour.
"I can pay about 100 to 120 dollars (75 to 90 euros) a worker, whereas an Iraqi would want 400 to 450 dollars," he says.
"I provide accommodation on site, so there is the advantage that the Bangladeshis are available any hour, which is not the case with locals. I have friends who own shops and their (Iraqi) workers are always walking off. You can't rely on them."
Visa problems are common, however. The labour ministry says many Bangladeshis -- who are employed throughout the Middle East as cheap labour -- are working in Iraq illegally.
In some cases, workers who previously worked for coalition forces later join a labour black market when their contracts run out, the government says.
Others, like Belal Uddin Alan, now work as recruitment agents.
A native of Dhaka, 32-year-old Alam worked at a US army camp until the end of 2008. He did not want to go home and, as an Arabic speaker, he saw opportunity here.
"Salaries of 150 dollars to 250 dollars cannot be found in Bangladesh," he says. "Our workers work hard, and will not turn up in the morning and then at 10 or 11 o'clock say 'I have to leave' and quickly disappear."
Alam says his company takes 100 dollars in commission for each worker he finds a job for -- some 60 to 70 men to date.
Visa problems can occur, he acknowledges -- but he denies that legal paperwork is deliberately ignored.
"For work," he says, "the situation in Iraq is good."
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Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
by Hiroko Tabuchi - Excerpt from New York Times
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Rita Yamaoka, a mother of three who immigrated from Brazil, recently lost her factory job here. Now, Japan has made her an offer she might not be able to refuse.
The government will pay thousands of dollars to fly Mrs. Yamaoka; her husband, who is a Brazilian citizen of Japanese descent; and their family back to Brazil. But in exchange, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband must agree never to seek to work in Japan again.
“I feel immense stress. I’ve been crying very often,” Mrs. Yamaoka, 38, said after a meeting where local officials detailed the offer in this industrial town in central Japan.
“I tell my husband that we should take the money and go back,” she said, her eyes teary. “We can’t afford to stay here much longer.”
Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.
But critics denounce the program as shortsighted, inhumane and a threat to what little progress Japan has made in opening its economy to foreign workers.
“It’s a disgrace. It’s cold-hearted,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.
“And Japan is kicking itself in the foot,” he added. “We might be in a recession now, but it’s clear it doesn’t have a future without workers from overseas.”
The program is limited to the country’s Latin American guest workers, whose Japanese parents and grandparents emigrated to Brazil and neighboring countries a century ago to work on coffee plantations.
In 1990, Japan — facing a growing industrial labor shortage — started issuing thousands of special work visas to descendants of these emigrants. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians now live in Japan.
The guest workers quickly became the largest group of foreign blue-collar workers in an otherwise immigration-averse country, filling the so-called three-K jobs (kitsui, kitanai, kiken — hard, dirty and dangerous).
But the nation’s manufacturing sector has slumped as demand for Japanese goods evaporated, pushing unemployment to a three-year high of 4.4 percent. Japan’s exports plunged 45.6 percent in March from a year earlier, and industrial production is at its lowest level in 25 years.
New data from the Japanese trade ministry suggested manufacturing output could rise in March and April, as manufacturers start to ease production cuts. But the numbers could have more to do with inventories falling so low that they need to be replenished than with any increase in demand.
While Japan waits for that to happen, it has been keen to help foreign workers leave, which could ease pressure on domestic labor markets and the unemployment rolls.
“There won’t be good employment opportunities for a while, so that’s why we’re suggesting that the Nikkei Brazilians go home,” said Jiro Kawasaki, a former health minister and senior lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
“Nikkei” visas are special visas granted because of Japanese ancestry or association.
Mr. Kawasaki led the ruling party task force that devised the repatriation plan, part of a wider emergency strategy to combat rising unemployment.
Under the emergency program, introduced this month, the country’s Brazilian and other Latin American guest workers are offered $3,000 toward air fare, plus $2,000 for each dependent — attractive lump sums for many immigrants here. Workers who leave have been told they can pocket any amount left over.
But those who travel home on Japan’s dime will not be allowed to reapply for a work visa. Stripped of that status, most would find it all but impossible to return. They could come back on three-month tourist visas. Or, if they became doctors or bankers or held certain other positions, and had a company sponsor, they could apply for professional visas.
Spain, with a unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, has adopted a similar program, but immigrants are allowed to reclaim their residency and work visas after three years.
Japan is under pressure to allow returns. Officials have said they will consider such a modification, but have not committed to it.
“Naturally, we don’t want those same people back in Japan after a couple of months,” Mr. Kawasaki said. “Japanese taxpayers would ask, ‘What kind of ridiculous policy is this?’ ”
The plan came as a shock to many, especially after the government introduced a number of measures in recent months to help jobless foreigners, including free Japanese-language courses, vocational training and job counseling. Guest workers are eligible for limited cash unemployment benefits, provided they have paid monthly premiums.
“It’s baffling,” said Angelo Ishi, an associate professor in sociology at Musashi University in Tokyo. “The Japanese government has previously made it clear that they welcome Japanese-Brazilians, but this is an insult to the community.”
It could also hurt Japan in the long run. The aging country faces an impending labor shortage. The population has been falling since 2005, and its working-age population could fall by a third by 2050. Though manufacturers have been laying off workers, sectors like farming and care for the elderly still face shortages.
But Mr. Kawasaki said the economic slump was a good opportunity to overhaul Japan’s immigration policy as a whole.
“We should stop letting unskilled laborers into Japan. We should make sure that even the three-K jobs are paid well, and that they are filled by Japanese,” he said. “I do not think that Japan should ever become a multiethnic society.”
He said the United States had been “a failure on the immigration front,” and cited extreme income inequalities between rich Americans and poor immigrants.
At the packed town hall meeting in Hamamatsu, immigrants voiced disbelief that they would be barred from returning. Angry members of the audience converged on officials. Others walked out of the meeting room.
“Are you saying even our children will not be able to come back?” one man shouted.
“That is correct, they will not be able to come back,” a local labor official, Masahiro Watai, answered calmly.
Claudio Nishimori, 30, said he was considering returning to Brazil because his shifts at a electronics parts factory were recently reduced. But he felt anxious about going back to a country he had left so long ago.
“I’ve lived in Japan for 13 years. I’m not sure what job I can find when I return to Brazil,” he said. But his wife has been unemployed since being laid off last year and he can no longer afford to support his family.
Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband, Sergio, who settled here three years ago at the height of the export boom, are undecided. But they have both lost jobs at auto factories. Others have made up their minds to leave. About 1,000 of Hamamatsu’s Brazilian inhabitants left the city before the aid was even announced. The city’s Brazilian elementary school closed last month.
“They put up with us as long as they needed the labor,” said Wellington Shibuya, who came six years ago and lost his job at a stove factory in October. “But now that the economy is bad, they throw us a bit of cash and say goodbye.”
He recently applied for the government repatriation aid and is set to leave in June.
“We worked hard; we tried to fit in. Yet they’re so quick to kick us out,” he said. “I’m happy to leave a country like this.”
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