DUBAI // Some Chinese labourers say they are routinely assigned nine-hour workdays, seven days a week, a violation of UAE labour law.
Such a schedule is standard in China. In the Emirates, however, regulations stipulate that labourers can work a maximum of six days a week, for eight hours each day, plus a maximum of two hours a day of overtime, for which they would be compensated at a special rate.
If labourers work seven days a week, they can do so every other week only, and must be given extra pay, said Maher Alobad, director of inspection at the Ministry of Labour. "Everybody must accept the law," he said. "The labourers should come to any Labour Department office and make a complaint."
Some 3,000 Chinese companies operate in the UAE. Although most of the companies are involved in trade, Chinese construction workers here number in the thousands.
Several labourers working on projects of two Chinese companies said they earn as much as 6,000 Chinese yuan (Dh3,300) a month for a 63-hour work week. Some days, depending on project demands, they work a few hours extra at the regular hourly rate of compensation.
"Chinese labourers all work seven days a week. This is the custom in China," said a manager at China State Construction Engineering Company, a leading state-owned enterprise and the largest Chinese construction company in the UAE. The company employs 4,500 workers in the UAE - a third of them Chinese. "They can take a day off or a sick day, but they will not get paid."
"There is no law here," said one worker who asked not to be named. "Whatever they say goes." But China State Construction Engineering denied such a schedule was routine. "We request them to have a half-day off," said Li Xiaohan, the company's labour department manager, who is based in Dubai. "I don't want them to go every day for the whole year. It's not good for their health. They will not be able to finish their contract."
At the same time, he said, site managers have discretion over employees' hours depending on project demands. Chinese labourers said they often work through local holidays - unless their partner companies rest, making them unable to work. They do, however, get time off - three days at the most - for major Chinese holidays such as the spring festival, the mid-autumn festival, and the dragon boat festival.
In China, by contrast, labourers normally get several weeks off to travel to their home villages during holidays, said Liu Kaiming, a labour expert at the Institute of Contemporary Observation in the Chinese factory city of Shenzhen. In the UAE, though, Chinese workers can earn nearly twice as much as they could back home.
At another UAE-based Chinese company, whenever extra hours were offered on top of the nine per day, so many workers volunteered that managers did not have to pick anyone, said an employee who asked that his name and the name of his company be withheld. "When you're feeling good, you want to work overtime. When you're not, you don't," he said.
Indeed, for many workers on seven-day schedules, burnout comes quickly. "If we were at home we could have left our jobs, but here we cannot," said one labourer, who arrived in the UAE six months ago. "We don't know where to go to complain. We don't want to make Chinese people look bad." "In any case, the salaries in Dubai are high. So we just let it go," he said. "We will work for two years and go home."
chuang@thenational.ae
Even the most diligent need an outlet
DUBAI // With so few spare hours, Chinese labourers in Dubai spend much of their free time resting and preparing for the next day back on the job.
But many find the time to get away from camp, even if they live in the middle of the desert and their managers frown upon them leaving their lodgings.
“We cannot control them. We have a huge number of labourers. They cannot speak English and they cannot speak Arabic, but they get out,” said Li Xiaohan, a labour department manager at China State Construction Engineering Company.
Labourers living in the city – for example, in Al Quoz – can easily stroll to a nearby plaza. Yet even at remote sites, many find ways to visit Chinese hubs like Dragon Mart in International City. They have taxi drivers who know how to reach their camp and take them back.
Some get away by going for a walk in the desert. In the evening breeze that blows through the dunes, they chat with friends, sitting on plastic stools half-buried in the sand.
On Friday evenings, some labourers go to church. Clutching ID cards that explain where they are going in case they are stopped, they pile into buses provided by their pastors.
Most nights, they just wash, eat and relax before heading to bed.
At some sites, labourers watch television in a common room, read Chinese magazines or play table tennis or basketball. Others download films on their phones to watch alone. Later the men duck behind colourful blankets strung up over their bunk beds and rest until dawn signals the beginning of the next work shift.
* Carol Huang
The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs: 2018 Opel Mokka X
Price, as tested: Dh84,000
Engine: 1.4L, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: Six-speed auto
Power: 142hp at 4,900rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 1,850rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L / 100km
UAE%20SQUAD
%3Cp%3E%0D%3Cstrong%3EMen%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Saif%20Al%20Zaabi%2C%20Salem%20Al%20Marzooqi%2C%20Zayed%20Al%20Ansaari%2C%20Saud%20Abdulaziz%20Rahmatalla%2C%20Adel%20Shanbih%2C%20Ahmed%20Khamis%20Al%20Blooshi%2C%20Abdalla%20Al%20Naqbi%2C%20Khaled%20Al%20Hammadi%2C%20Mohammed%20Khamis%20Khalaf%2C%20Mohammad%20Fahad%2C%20Abdulla%20Al%20Arimi.%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EWomen%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mozah%20Al%20Zeyoudi%2C%20Haifa%20Al%20Naqbi%2C%20Ayesha%20Al%20Mutaiwei.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Stamp duty timeline
December 2014: Former UK finance minister George Osbourne reforms stamp duty, replacing the slab system with a blended rate scheme, with the top rate increasing to 12 per cent from 10 per cent:
Up to £125,000 - 0%; £125,000 to £250,000 – 2%; £250,000 to £925,000 – 5%; £925,000 to £1.5m: 10%; Over £1.5m – 12%
April 2016: New 3% surcharge applied to any buy-to-let properties or additional homes purchased.
July 2020: Rishi Sunak unveils SDLT holiday, with no tax to pay on the first £500,000, with buyers saving up to £15,000.
March 2021: Mr Sunak decides the fate of SDLT holiday at his March 3 budget, with expectations he will extend the perk unti June.
April 2021: 2% SDLT surcharge added to property transactions made by overseas buyers.
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FIXTURES
All kick-off times 10.45pm UAE ( 4 GMT) unless stated
Tuesday
Sevilla v Maribor
Spartak Moscow v Liverpool
Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk
Napoli v Feyenoord
Besiktas v RB Leipzig
Monaco v Porto
Apoel Nicosia v Tottenham Hotspur
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
Wednesday
Basel v Benfica
CSKA Moscow Manchester United
Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
Anderlecht v Celtic
Qarabag v Roma (8pm)
Atletico Madrid v Chelsea
Juventus v Olympiakos
Sporting Lisbon v Barcelona
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Formula%204%20Italian%20Championship%202023%20calendar
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203S%20Money%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202018%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20London%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ivan%20Zhiznevsky%2C%20Eugene%20Dugaev%20and%20Andrei%20Dikouchine%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%245.6%20million%20raised%20in%20total%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
