|
Manama: A recommendation to "adjust" the situation of all expatriates working in the Gulf within two years will be submitted to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit next November, the GCC labour ministers have agreed.
The "adjustment" includes imposing a residency cap on millions of unskilled expatriates and setting up a joint committee to shortlist the "expert occupations" that could be exempted from the time limit.
However, each GCC member state will tackle the issue of its expatriates based on its own needs and conditions but within the two-year transitional period, according to a report by Bahrain's labour ministry.
The six GCC labour ministers met over the weekend in Geneva on the sidelines of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conference to coordinate their views and plans.
"The meeting reviewed the conditions of the expatriates in the GCC and their economic, social and demographic impact on the Gulf countries. The ministers also discussed the ILO Convention No. 97 on Migration for Employment," the report made available to Gulf News, said.
Implications
Labour authorities in the GCC have repeatedly warned against the long-term social, economic and political implications of the convention that lays down the principle of equal treatment of migrant workers and national workers on working conditions, trade union membership, collective bargaining, accommodation and social security.
Bahrain's Labour Minister Dr Majid Al Alawi in January incurred the wrath of rights activists for stating that the presence of almost 17 million foreign workers in the Gulf, mostly from the Asian subcontinent, represented "a danger worse than the atomic bomb or an Israeli attack."
Al Alawi said that the number of expatriates would reach 30 million in 10 years, warning that "if the Gulf governments do not watch out for this tsunami of foreign labourers, the fate of this region is very worrying."
His six-year residency cap proposal was backed by his GCC counterparts, but was defeated by the business lobbies in the Gulf amid claims that it would inexorably harm the booming economy.
The ministers now hope that the GCC summit in Muscat next November will take up the issue and agree on measures to introduce a time limit on expatriates, reduce foreign labour dependency and promote national labour policies.
For more, read the Tuesday edition of Gulf News
|
