The Way Things Are

There's been some excellent reporting in The Guardian of late regarding the exploitation of low-paid workers in the construction industry in Qatar. It's going to be difficult to watch the World Cup scheduled for that country in 2022 knowing of the extraordinary number of deaths related to heat exhaustion suffered by the migrant workers employed to build the stadiums, roads and hotels needed. And it comes as no real surprise to read of how the fatalities are being covered up.

I grew up with some understanding of the need for unions to protect workers. It puzzles me enormously that perfectly decent people are sometimes blind to this necessity, seeming to believe that a laissez-faire approach to labour relations will somehow produce fair systems in which workers are decently treated. What's going on in Qatar seems to me related to a simple truth of history, of the human condition: Those at the bottom will be ruthlessly exploited if their rights are not firmly protected; it's criminally naïve to assume otherwise.