Globalization, India. India, globalization. [Outlook]

Thousands of undocumented workers with the same skill sets as the local populace, arrive by the proverbial boatloads, and “take away jobs” from the locals. Sounds like a Lou Dobbs’ wet dream come true.

The Outlook performed an “exposé” on thousands of undocumented Chinese workers in India.

Across the country, several thousands of Chinese workers are at work on infrastructure projects bagged by Chinese contractors. But the arrangement is not without controversy—the hordes of unskilled/semi-skilled imports from China are taking jobs from the unemployed Indian. One estimate put their total number—skilled and unskilled together—at around 25,000.

Like any good old story related to foreign workers, this one has its heart warming stories of xenophobia rooted in, among other factors mistrust and resentment of foreigners.

In May this year, violence flared up after one of the Indian workers was sacked for being absent. Police had to be called in but not before workers from both sides suffered injuries. Xenophobic altercations have also been reported from Bengal, including one in March this year at the Durgapur Projects Limited plant after Indian workers questioned the Chinese technical experts on site. As an EIL worker put it, “About 25 per cent of them are manual workers like us. There’s not much to learn from them.”

The Chinese workers are brought over by Chinese companies that obtain large construction/infrastructure contracts. By Indian law, it is illegal for non-skilled or semi-skilled foreign laborers to work in India. Outlook alleges that a large number of Chinese workers are semi-skilled laborers being passed off as skilled workers to bypass Indian regulatory laws. Outlook discovered that these workers were housed in enclosed compounds away from the local population in air-conditioned units (air-conditioning is considered a luxury in large sections of India) and have amenities like basketball courts, cable TV and a restaurant serving Chinese food, not the Indian Chinese kind either.

The Chinese workers don’t come cheap either, their daily salary is estimated to be around 20 times of an Indian worker with the same skill set. So what makes Chinese workers so popular?

R.S. Singh refused to divulge financial details but says the Chinese are very “cost-effective”. “They’ll set up this plant in 15 months whereas a plant of a similar nature would take an Indian enterprise eight years,” he says. D.S. Rajan, director, Centre for China Studies, Chennai, agrees on that point. “They behave very well collectively with an inclination to complete projects in time. Indians tend to be more individualistic.”

Labor laws and trade unions for Indian workers have proved to be more of a hindrance in hiring Indian workers than preventing foreign workers. Unfortunately, the existing work culture fostered by decades of socialist policies, which have created scant respect for deadlines and time-sensitive projects, appears to be yet another deterrent in the hiring of locals. While, the number of Chinese workers is hardly noteworthy, estimates put it at a whopping 25,000, critics fear that could be the beginning of a trend of a large scale foreign worker influx into India.

I’m interested in our readers’ opinions. How do you feel about Chinese workers coming to India and taking potential jobs away from Indian workers? Would you, like me, chalk it down to globalization or do we have a budding Lou Dobbs amongst our midst? Post your thoughts and opinions in the space below and keep it clean. Best Lou Dobbs impersonator wins ….. a pat on the back. Cheap? Most definitely. Vaat to do, we are like that vonly.

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