We just want to help you, here in the employment zone

As the world globalizes information – which also implies globalizing capital – we observe a mobility of labor unprecedented in global history.  With that labor mobility comes the ebb and flow of people and money – people moving to cities to earn money, then sending that money ‘back home’ (wherever that may be), via capital’s underground river of remittances.  Although remittances are unquestionably a good thing, and among the largest forces driving slum upgrading in the global south, for every bright new invention there is a dark side.  One dark side that I’ve already profiled is human smuggling and extorted remittances.  Another is demonstrated by this Jenara Nerenberg article/ post from The Next Billion:

To serve Nepalis?  Nepalis returning to Qatar

In Development and Base of the Pyramid (BOP) circles, we often discuss remittance economies and innovative ways to send remittances home; what we don’t always think or talk about is what forces people to leave their home countries in the first place and what they experience when they go abroad.

To someone from a rural area, the job might as well be on the far side of the Moon – a completely alien, hostile environment, and one embarks on the journey in a state of excitement, hope, and trust.

Off to a great new adventure, honey!

The lure of earning money abroad is among the most powerful of vaporwares. 

Handbook of a multi-planetary conglomerate?

From Irish migrating in droves to Boston in the 1850s (buying one-way sailing ship tickets and expecting they would be able to keep pigs and chickens in their back yards) to Chinese peasants coming to California in the 1870s, people focus on the top line – how much they can earn – not the bottom line, how much they keep after their new expenses. 

1869: sixteen miles of track laid in one day in a frantic race across America’s West

Today’s gold rushes and property rushes are in China’s cities and in the Persian Gulf oil kingdoms, and they draw labor from all around:

In the case of Nepal, as I’ve written about before, migrant laborers most often travel to the Middle East and Southeast Asia –

A comfortable bunk in a strange place

Yet the individual, removed from his habitat, is vulnerable, and the shift in power relationships leads to a natural potential for exploitation:

– often having their passports taken away from them upon arrival and not getting paid for months at a time.

We’re just looking out for your long-term interest

So would systems that facilitate sending remittances home actually encourage and facilitate such an unjust ecosystem?

Technology is amoral – it facilitates outcomes without regard to whether they are moral or immoral.  That’s as true for financial technology as for physical.  It’s not the remittances’ job to stop worker exploitation; rather, it’s the workers’ job, or the job of governments, either Nepal’s or Qatar’s.

But what if the government – either or both governments – finds it convenient to look the other way?

It’s a public-private partnership

I took the opportunity to interview one such laborer, Aslam, who spent 18 months in Doha, Qatar.

[A video of the interview is available here, on YouTube – Ed.]

In Kathmandu, he is a widely respected mason, but in Doha he simply broke stone and his skills were not put to full use.

Not the stuff of romance, is it?  Modern-day Kathmandu

That Aslam did not immediately leap into a professional discipline is a consequence of moving from a lower-skilled to higher-skilled labor market.  Ask any New York cabbie about the challenges of re-establishing yourself in a new land. 

Aslam wanted to see the world; while abroad he went to the ocean for the first time and flew on an airplane for the first time.

Travel brings experience, and Aslam sounds young.

Jenara Nerenberg, NextBillion.net: Why did you go to Qatar?

Aslam, Nepali mason: I went to Qatar to find work. I wanted to make extra money from work so I could eat happily.

There, in a nutshell, is the lure of urbanization.  Cities are wealth generators, beacons of economic promise.

Jobs, knowledge, and freedom, all in the Emerald City

They are also famous, even notorious, for bustle and stress.

JN: What did you experience there?

Aslam: Work is a lot harder there than here. It’s a lot hotter over there. It’s twice as hot there. They don’t care how bad the weather is there; they just want you to work. If you don’t go to work, they cut your pay.

Pulled out of their normal situation, people lack choice, which saps their power, and they are vulnerable to exploitation. 

Chinese coolies cutting railroads in the Sierra Nevada snows

JN: How did they treat you?

Aslam: Some of the managers are nice, but others are very untrustworthy.  Some people don’t have a lot of kindness. They tell you, “You came from Nepal to work. Whether you live or die, it’s all the same. You came here to work. If you work, we give you money. If you don’t work, we don’t give you any money.” They don’t let you take any time off from work either.

As with any work environment where men are congregate, you are there to work, as fast as possible.  As in any human environment, people given power wield it differently based on their character.  We have labor laws because it takes government to protect those who whose economic weakness makes them vulnerable.

Aslam: I even filed a case against the company. I even went to the Nepali embassy. After two or three days, I got into an argument with the Embassy. I asked them, “Why do you even have an Embassy here? Go back to Nepal. You’re just here to spend the government’s money. You’re not doing anything while so many Nepalis are in trouble. While there are so many Nepalis suffering, you’re just sitting in a comfortable chair and eating good food.”

I got into a labor dispute and I even took them to court.

When you are a contract worker concentrating on remittances, every game is an away game, and when playing on the other team’s home field, the deck is always stacked against you.

Why am I worried about the referees?

“They don’t care what Nepalis have to say. They call Nepali people “jungly.” That’s how much unhappiness there is for Nepali people abroad.”

But in the end, the money he earned in Doha only paid off the loans he had to borrow in order to go to Doha in the first place, essentially breaking even and not profiting.

To travel a vast distance, to the dark side of the moon and beyond, is to put yourself at the presumptive mercy of people who, for all they look like you, think in ways so strange and distant they might be as aliens.

What strange world will they find when they land, with such people in it?

Aliens who may see you only as fodder:

“I finally translated the rest.  It’s a cookbook!”

JN: Are you happy with the amount of money you earned while there?

Aslam: How can you be happy bringing back money that made you so unhappy?  I earned about 150,000 rupees.  I used that to pay back my loans.

If not devoured for their meat, remittance workers can be devoured for their finances.  Over and over again throughout history, we find the ‘company town’ springing up to work the mines, or lay the railroad track, or drill the pipes – and once the laborer is separated from his culture and his support network, he’s easy to exploit.  As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang it:

Load sixteen tons and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t call me ’cause I can’t go

I sold my soul at the company store

JN: Would you tell others to go abroad or stay in Nepal?

Aslam: I got some phone calls asking me if I wanted to go to Dubai. But I told them, I’m going to stay in Nepal and work. For people who want to go, they will spend at least 140,000 rupees. You might as well spend that much money here.

You mean I won’t get rich and be happy?

JN: What do you want to tell other Nepalis who are thinking about going abroad to work?

Aslam: If someone wants to go, it’s obviously their choice. Once people don’t find work in Nepal, they will go. They think that going abroad will earn them more money. I will tell them, “Don’t go.” Try to work in Nepal and if you can’t find work, then take care of your home.

Concludes the Next Billion author:

So when we in BoP circles think about remittances, let’s also think about what forces people to leave their homes in the first place and what they endure and sacrifice in order to send those remittances home. We need to create jobs at home- that is certain. But when those are not available, is it a better option for people at the base of the pyramid to travel abroad where they make the same or even less money, are separated from their families, and are treated like second class citizens?  

As phrased, the answer is No – it is not better to make less money sundered from your culture.  That’s why so many remittance workers live in ethnic communities in their work-country, and why smarter worker-host countries require worker and human-rights protections for anyone legally working in the country.

As Rod Serling put it in voiceover:

The recollections of one Michael Chambers, with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man, the cycle of going from dust to dessert, the metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone’s soup. It’s tonight’s bill of fare from the Twilight Zone.

I want to be with my friends!

JN: Are you happy to be home in Nepal?

Aslam: Yes, I am happy to be back in my own country.  Once you come back to your country, you’re happier whether you have money or not.

Concludes the author:

In the case of Nepal, I think we are better off creating jobs at home. 

That’s the conundrum, isn’t it?  Without jobs, some towns die, and when they do, the workers must migrate, to heaven or to the dark side of the Moon.

Any life in the vacuum?

[Hat tip: Yousuf Marvi.]

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