Gulf fodder

8216;8216;Either they pay us or send our corpses home,8217;8217; said Imtiaz Ahmed Siddiq, one of the South Asian laborers, who has made the trek to the court more than 50 times since last year. 8216;8216;If they pay us, we8217;ll go home alive. If they don8217;t pay us, we8217;ll go home dead.8217;8217;

For a decade now, the United Arab Emirates have represented a rare success story in a troubled Arab world, a story of breakneck, even reckless development, investment and optimism. Nothing is too grand in the Emirates8217; Oz-like vision: an underwater hotel, an indoor ski slope and man-made islands shaped like the palms that grace Persian Gulf beaches crowded with tourists.

But there is growing unrest among the hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers here who have built the country8217;s skylines, crowded with one-fifth of the world8217;s cranes.

Although unions are banned, workers have launched strikes over the past year to protest living conditions, salaries of 4 to 7 a day, and hazardous workplaces where human rights groups say deaths are sometimes covered up. In March, workers rioted at the site of Burj Dubai8212;envisioned as the world8217;s tallest skyscraper8212;wrecking cars and computers. Last weekend, 1,000 workers rampaged in their camp.

Siddiq and the workers of the East Coast 038; Hamriah Co live in conditions so bleak as to test their lingering faith. Their story is a Kafkaesque tale of those left behind, as they pursue salaries of hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars by trekking every few days to a court that has become their bane and hope.

From their camp in an industrial area on the edge of Sharjah, they started their journey. Dirt roads soon gave way to paved streets, cinder block and corrugated tin to concrete, battered Toyota pickups to Mercedeses. The street became six lanes, and the low-slung hovels of their neighborhood made way for towers of steel and glass.

They passed the Mega Mall, the Crystal Plaza, the Royal House and an arcade of airline offices. Before them in the downtown sprawled a manicured park, with beds of pink and red flowers and towering date palms.

8216;8216;It would be a nice life here, if you were paid,8217;8217; said Banwari Lal Bairawa, a 30-year-old Indian. Siddiq nodded and pulled out a telegram from his brother, dated August 9, 2005. 8216;8216;Wife serious,8217;8217; it read. 8216;8216;Come soon.8217;8217; Her leg was broken, Siddiq learned afterward. He hasn8217;t talked to them since.

Siddiq and Bairawa have emerged as leaders of the 30 men at the camp, a warren of collapsing prefabricated dwellings set over dirt packed hard as concrete. Water bottles, yogurt containers, discarded shoes and other trash are piled along one of the shanties. Across other paths, pools of sewage collect, runoff from a latrine flooded long ago.

The doors all stay open, letting in a breeze to compensate for idle fans. That, in turn, lets in mosquitoes and the stench. Sometimes seven to a room, the beds are a mix of thin mattresses, tattered foam or just a piece of plywood. On one sits a newspaper advertisement: Emirates Hills Villas for Sale.

Raised on Indian films and stories told by returning emigrants with cellphones, cameras and fancy clothes, Siddiq paid an agent 1,000 nine years ago to help him secure a job in the Emirates. Once here, he was paid about 200 a month. He was never paid on time and money was deducted for housing, medical insurance, visas and so on. He quit on December 31, 2004, and demanded his due.

The following year, the company went bankrupt: The Lebanese owner went to Canada, and the other owner, from the Emirates, was absolved of liability, according to Hussein Yusuf, the company8217;s attorney.

Since then, Siddiq has received no money and like the others, has run up a debt of hundreds of dollars at a nearby store for rice, flour, oil and vegetables. He has not seen his two daughters and son since 2002 and no longer sends money home. As with most of the men, Siddiq8217;s visa has expired, as has his Indian passport.

The other men8212;most from India, two from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan8212;huddled around him, and he pulled out a torn piece of paper, bound with masking tape and folded four times. It bore the date 13 April 2005 and was an order from the Sharjah court for the company to pay him 17,630 dirhams, almost 4,800, in addition to a ticket to his home in Bihar. Most of the men have similar court orders, pending appeals; the largest sum is for Chanan Rao, a 26-year veteran, who is owed nearly 6,000.

The trek to the court on Tuesday took two hours, and there was a logic behind their numbers. 8216;8216;If there8217;s one or two, they won8217;t listen to us,8217;8217; Siddiq said. 8216;8216;When there8217;s more, they8217;ll pay attention.8217;8217;

They reached a waterway that bisects Sharjah and clambered into a ferry that charged them each a 14-cent fare. Once on the other side, they walked up a red-brick sidewalk, then a staircase of red granite. They stamped their feet, covered in dust and sand, at the entrance to the domed courthouse. A look of ease graced their faces as they stood in the air-conditioned lobby.

Siddiq led the team to the desk, behind a colonnade of arches . 8216;8216;Not everybody here,8217;8217; demanded the receptionist, Ali al-Mulla. 8216;8216;We only need one. Everybody else out.8217;8217;

Siddiq spoke, grasping his court order and explaining their plight: no electricity, no water. They just wanted their salaries. 8216;8216;There8217;s no point in coming all the time,8217;8217; Mulla said in broken Hindi. 8216;8216;Our work is done. We issued the ruling.8217;8217; They pleaded. He agreed to let one of them see the judge when he arrived.

In another room stood Yusuf, the company8217;s attorney. He didn8217;t question the salaries they were owed, but the company, he explained, was bankrupt. Its assets8212;construction equipment, cars, an office and furniture8212;wouldn8217;t cover what they wanted. Besides, he said, the company also owed far more money to banks, equipment contractors and dealers of building materials. 8216;8216;They really are honest people,8217;8217; he said of the company8217;s owners. 8216;8216;Their problems just became bigger than them.8217;8217;

For two hours, the workers waited in black leather chairs. Then the judge, Abdel-Rahman bin Talia, arrived, and Bairawa and Louhaya Ram, another worker, went into his office, No 14.

8216;8216;Why are you coming every day?8217;8217; he bellowed as they entered. The same list followed: electricity, water and, of course, their salaries.

8216;8216;You want to take your money? Bring someone who will buy all the company8217;s stuff,8217;8217; the judge said.

Bin Talia then cooled down and tried to reassure them. 8216;8216;We8217;ll see,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;Wait a week or two, and we8217;ll see if something can be done.8217;8217;

Bairawa came out, and the men huddled around him. He explained what had been said, and they frowned.

Siddiq shook his head. 8216;8216;The day they tell us they8217;re not giving us our money, we8217;ll take our lives. Right there,8217;8217; he said, pointing to the courthouse8217;s staircase. 8216;8216;The same day.8217;8217;

Bairawa, calmer, shrugged his shoulders. 8216;8216;We8217;ll keep coming,8217;8217; he said.

The men walked down the staircase and out into the pallid sunlight, navigated the traffic, horns blaring as they crossed. And they clambered back into the idling boat, paying their 14 cents for the trek back.