Aldar Properties is to construct two residential cities for its workers. The two projects are expected to complete in 2010 and will eventually house 150,000 laborers.“We are committed to provide respectable living conditions for workers ensuring security and safety,” says Aldar Chairman Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh. “We believe that the company’s progress is attributed partly to the labourers who work hard in our projects. For our part, we provide them with facilities and first-class services along with transportation to move them from the residential compounds to work sites.”
The new-and-improved labor camps are the latest attempt to reinvent the UAE’s dismal record on the treatment of workers. The next generation accommodation will be less like a jail, and more holiday camp. Ronald Barrott, Aldar CEO, says invitations will be “sent to many celebrities, such as singers, to come entertain the compound’s residents.”
There will also be shops, banks, cinemas and services. Will there be much need for shopping for residents earning less than $10 a day? You bet. The trick, according to CK Prahalad, is to stop thinking of the poor as victims and instead start seeing them as “resilient and creative entrepreneurs as well as value-demanding consumers”. Pick up his book, 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’, for details. Or do the math: 150,000 workers at $10 equals $1.5m.
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