Workers’ Protest Spurs Arab Emirates to Act

More than half of Dubai's one million people are poor immigrants from South Asia and the Philippines. Eight hundred of those residents, dissatisfied workers who have not been paid in five months, recently marched on the emirate's Ministry of Labor. It was a rare show of labor unrest in a city-state that tolerates much in the name of business and little in the way of dissent. Even more astonishing was the government's reaction: It quickly ruled in favor of the protesters, demanding that their employer award them millions of dollars in back pay and punishing the firm for its intransigence. It was a first for Dubai, but some see it as a hopeful sign of things to come in a city-state whose rapid growth has been built on the backs of an oppressed migrant underclass. – YaleGlobal