‘can we talk’ said in a comment:

meanwhile the guy who took the burger-flipping job for peanuts has long moved up to a better paying job

This is as good an opening as any to re-open the labour and job situation in Bahrain, so let me start with this:

I talked to two businessmen last week about the job situation in Bahrain, both had the same opinion:

“we are ready to pay taxes, pay fines, establish a ‘General Organisation of Fly Castrators’ or ‘General Organisation of Counting Rice Grains’ or whatever; just put all those Bahrainis which the Ministry of Labour is throwing at us in those organisations and we will pay the monthly salaries of BD200 a month and will not require them to punch-in and punch-out; just give us the opportunity to employ whomever we want who we can hold responsible for their performance and fire when warranted – but don’t force this stupid ‘Bahranisation’ on us. We are not charities.”

A third businessman who owns a factory told me another story:

We employ over 100 people, we give everybody the chance to learn if they want to, and then find the appropriate position for them if that position wasn’t predetermined. We also embrace and promote those people who excel.

Let me give you an example: several years ago we employed a tea-boy from India. He couldn’t speak Arabic nor English, he was completely illiterate: couldn’t read nor write. We paid him BD40 a month. He was diligent and poked his nose into everything, asked questions and slowly, over a period of a year he learnt to read and write enough to get by, he also knew exactly where every nut and bolt and other stock’s locations in the store. He got to be faster than the old storeman and better, now a few years later, he is the full storekeeper and is earning many times what he earned when he started.

Another example: we hired a Bengali as a general dogsbody on the factory floor and he got lost between the other bodies. We almost forgot we had him, until we noticed that he learned how to use a very technical machine and excelled at producing works of art with it! The customers started asking for him by name (the person who did that piece, and that sort of thing)! That was just 9 months from the minute he stepped onto the factory floor! He is now regarded as a full artisan and is being paid handsomely, many times that what he started with.

Final example, and a symptomatic one, unfortunately: we had a Bahraini driver; he takes the workers to the site, comes back after dropping them off and just sits around smoking, drinking tea and making jokes with his co-workers in the factory until he has to bring the workers back at the end of the shift to their accommodation.

I approached this fellow Bahraini and advised him to make use of his time; try to learn what goes on here, try your hand at helping those people at that machine so that you can learn.

He just looked at me, rose with a lot of grumbling and said to other co-workers that “they only pay me BD150 for being a driver and want to squeeze the life out of me and use me in other jobs as well!”

I called the guy back and explained the situation to him, I told him: “look, regardless of your presence, the factory will run. If you are sitting here smoking and drinking tea, the factory will run. If you are sitting in the car reading magazines and making phone calls, the factory will run. If you are here or not here doesn’t really matter, the factory and our work will not stop. We are not dependent on you. If you didn’t understand why I asked you to put your hand at something else it was for your benefit, it is so that I can justify increasing your salary and helping you learn a trade. Do you want to live the rest of your life as a driver?

Needless to say, the driver continued to be a driver, but no longer with that factory.

Unfortunately there are a lot – an awful lot – of people like the third person. Of course there are many who are like the first and second too, but the numbers who equate with the third kind are many, unfortunately. And I can give you many more horror stories that I have experienced personally.

Why that is? Lethargy, deficient self-worth, frustration, poverty, and not bothering with education are some of the problems faced.

Still, if you read a bit more into the new Labour Reform packages soon to be implemented and the stages and targets they have, you have to lift your hat quite high for the perpetrator of these changes. I truly believe that at last the problems have been identified and being tackled courageously and that’s why we should support them.

You will notice for instance that labourers and drivers are not the main target of these reforms, at least not in the first phase. Those will come. The biggest change that that package will introduce is the employers’ ability to hire and fire based on performance, regardless of nationality and gender. And it is this – in particular – that will ultimately force the Bahraini worker to re-evaluate his and her position and become more productive. Believe me when that happens, we will rule the world, because – ironically – we are not lazy, we just needed that huge chip to be knocked off our shoulder!