The golden rule to any injustice like this is the follow the money trail... I think some people may be missing the point that a lot of these construction companies are owned or controlled by the Qatari government who are basically the royalty of Qatar - it's a constitutional monarchy. So they would never introduce laws to undermine their own business interests. A constitutional monarchy is just a fancy word for a dictatorship at the end of the day. Not easy to change or influence; not with the power and capital they have at their disposal. It's a cruel world. The best way to hurt people like this is their pockets. And that involves a complete failure to host the tournament and that would take a massive boycott by all countries involved. If only...
Stephen fry is already lobbying the PM to pull our team out of the Winter olympics becasue of Russin laws on homosexuality. If he agreed to that (and given the Governement's very pro stance on gay marriage etc they'll have to look at it very seriously) then things would get very interesting indeed. The sad thing of course is that any British boycott is going to look like sour grapes because they won the world cup hosting rights and England did not.
Stephen Fry's Olympics boycott is a terrible, ill thought through idea. It's much better to go to the tournament and then make your political point. E.g. One of the most memorable and influential photographs of the 20th century: please log in to view this image You can also think of Jesse Owens at the '36 Olympics in Berlin, single handedly disproving Hitler's views on his aryan master race.
Jesse Owens in 1936! Yeah and the world continued it's racist way for another 50 years at least and the Nazis caused a world war and slaughtered millions. Taking part, even with protest, just supports the status quo and allows the organisers to marginalise such actions or even to set them up as in poor taste, as was done in the case of the black power salutes. Just don't take part, and kill the events, any other action is a cop out.
well! they could start by treating as human beings instead of some sub species! which is the way they're being treated at the moment! They could try paying them a decent wage, not working the literally to death. I give up!...
================================= Work them to death is a typical misunderstanding of the situation. They stand round doing **** all most of the day.
Oh I see, so the fact that they're dropping like flies is just a mere coincidence Ask yourself this Rob, if they weren't working these jobs, do you think they'd be dying at the rate they are? Sorry, you really are beginning to look like a mug.
i have lived in the gulf working in the construction industry for 3 years. i probably know a bit more about it than you tbh.
A labourer in Qatar has about a 1 in 2,500 chance of dieing every year. I'm not saying that that's ideal, but it's hardly "dropping like flies", and I would suggest that it's probably no higher than the mortality rate for people of their age range etc in their home countries. If you have this image of workers being sent out in chains and flogged until they drop, then you have been misled; as I say, they just mill about doing not very much for most of the day.
Un-****ing-believable!! So, they die at the rate of one a day, just from standing around doing "**** all" then...
they die at the rate of 1 in 2,000 per year. very few of the deaths that do occur would have been because they were working so incredibly hard or energetically. i think that i can say that i have never seen a labourer in the middle east working flat out. on that basis, yes, most deaths probably are of people who are standing around doing **** all.
ok, so maybe my previous post was a little unreasonable. it seems likely that some will have died due to over exersion, but that would be likely to be people who are seriously unfit or more likely those with some kind of congenital heart problem i would guess. when there is labour intensive work such as digging, you normally get about 5 guys who take it in turn, with 4 guys sitting watching and waiting for their turn. apart from that labourers are mainly pouring concrete which mainly just involves standing there. i still dont think that 1 in 2,000 a year is likely to be any higher a mortality rate than in india, nepal etc, so i think this has been blown way out of proportion to be honest. there may be some issues there that should be dealt with, but for me the mortality rate looks like a red herring.
bear in mind that there are more labourers in qatar than there are people in liverpool and glasgow put togethor. i don't know how many people die in liverpool and glasgow every week, but i bet it's a few.
Bear in mind that's a ****ing meaningless comparison, given they're for the most part not the supposedly fit and young demographic that makes up construction workers. I concur with your resignation Notso...
labourers in the middle east arent mainly fit and young though. i'd guess most labourers are probably in their 40s, and would range between say 25 and 60 or something like that. i don't think 1 in 2,000 deaths per year is likely to be out of the ordinary for that demographic. whilst we are both speculating on that point though, what i am not speculating on - because i witness it with my own eyes - is that labourers are not dropping dead due to exhaustion; probably 95% of the time they are not even doing physically strenuous work, and when they do, it will only be for a short burst.
Think I'll take the word of a respected national newspaper who has provided a decent amount of evidence to support their case, over someone on an internet forum with a vested interest in maintaining the reputation of the Gulf's construction industry That's not to say I necessarily believe that you work in construction in the gulf, given it took you more than 10 posts on this thread to mention it. You'd think it might be relevant enough to have mentioned slightly sooner
ok, regardless of whether i work in the construction industry in the gulf or not, my understanding is that labouring in the gulf mostly involves standing around holding concrete shutes, waiting for concrete to be poured, and maybe giving it a bit of a poke with a stick, cleaning out shuttering, ocassionally carrying a bucket somewhere or a bit of timber somehwhere, and very occasionally doing a bit of digging which involves taking a turn and then when you're a bit out of puff sitting down and watching while the next 4 or 5 blokes take their turn. it seems clear from your comment that you don't accept that explanation. what would your understanding be then of a day's work for a labourer in the gulf ?
