The Blue Collar's Worth - Unsung Hero of Construction Industry

This is my toastmaster speech no. 4


Do you believe that the harder you work, the higher you get paid? When I say hard, it means literally hard to do by the physical body including the environment of the workplace. Logically, it should be, if the measurement is the amount of effort, strength and stress of our body when we do the work. But that’s not the bite of reality. It is not always physical. The best example of that is in the construction industry.

In construction industry, there are two categories of employees – the white-collar and the blue-collar employees. The category is based on the colour of clothes of men employees usually wear at work.

The white-collar employees are the ones who generally office-based. They are the professionals - engineers, planners, designers, managers and admins. They work in an air-conditioned, nice and clean office in eight to nine hours a day. They work with computer, paper and pen.

The so-called “blue-collar” employees are the labourers who work at site. Here in the Middle East, be it in horizontal or vertical infrastructure projects, the labourers work under the scorching heat of the sun.  Their workplace is not convenient – dusty, messy, noisy and freakily hot! They have long working hours, minimum of 10 hours and more often, they do overtime and night shift as well. They do their job with tools and machines which some of it are dangerous. They are prone to injury and worse, death.

Knowing the working scenario of white-collar and blue-collar employees, still, who gets the higher pay? The average professionals’ wages are way far than labourers, about 75% difference according to Qatar statistics. One month salary of a professional is already a year for blue-collar employee. In some cases, they don’t even get paid for months or a year.

Who gets better benefits from the company? The white collars have the allowance for transportation and accommodation, enough for them to choose the comfortable place to live in. The blue-collars’ transportation and accommodation are provided by their company. But we all know what kind of accommodation they have. We can see their bus service from the street which travels at least 1 hour away from the site to their accommodation. The white collars could have discretionary bonus per year. I doubt for blue-collars.

Who gets recognition? When the project turned well, the recognition is given to either architects or engineers involved in it. The blue-collars? They are not credited to the success of the project. They are only recognized by human rights organizations who try to fight for their rights. The human rights organization claimed the labourers as the modern slave of our generation because they are most often abused and forced to work against their will. They don’t have choice, neither to quit nor to go back home since their passports are withheld by the company. They are even deprived to fight for their rights – just like as stated in Qatar labour law; they are not allowed to form union against their employer. Even in the society, the level of respect between these two employees is way far different. The white-collars get more respect and the blue-collars get little, sometimes none at all.

Why is that? Why there’s so much different?  Simply because of educational qualification. Face the truth that it is the standard of this world. That’s why our parents did everything just to send us in school and have a degree.

Last Thursday, I had my first ever site visit of under construction expressway project. We went there about 2pm in the afternoon. We saw the indicator flag was orange. In heat stress index, orange colour means the temperature and humidity is high, about 40ºC, this also indicates that the workers should have stop working and rest. But still we saw few workers at site. On those two hours, we were in the car and just dropped by for 5-10 minutes to look over the progress of different part of the projects. I witnessed how the workers able to do their job in spite of extreme heat! They were totally amazing. Surely I can’t do what they do out there. I suddenly uttered “Thanks to my mom who sent me to school and thanks to God for giving me a more comfortable work”.

Considering the weather, we were all sweaty and stinky after the visit. That site visit changed my outlook to in life. I appreciated the value of blue-collars workers. It answered my question why the worker’s bus service is not air-conditioned. Because if it is, they will suffocate with their smells!  Not because they don’t take a bath but because even just standing there under the sun doing nothing will make you stinky. It raised my bar of respect for them. I realized that they are the unsung heroes of construction industry. Why? Because no matter how good the design of the building or any structure, it will not come into reality without site workers. Because they are the ones behind in every structure we have now and what we will have in the future. The sad part is they are still left behind after all their hard works.