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Shimeles Meshesha arrived at the open field at
Haya-hulet Mazoria in front of the Tourist Trade
Enterprise premises at around nine o’clock one
morning in mid December. As is the usual trend for
the beginning of a typical day for any unemployed
labourer in the construction sector, he woke up with
only one thing in mind: go looking for work. As it
was, his prior paycheck had barely made it through
the previous day and he was down to his last Birr.
Early morning sees the city rush to feed the
construction industry’s appetite for labour in all
its various forms. From huge numbers of government
housing projects to roads to real estate
developments and homes, a simple look out of a high
enough window in the city clearly shows an urban
landscape in the making.
Authoritative sources also confirm the boom in
construction more efficiently than the view that
meet the eye. The number of buildings that were
approved for construction by the end of 2005/06 was
triple that in 1998/99, to give an example,
according to one study.
The Addis Abeba City Roads Authority, on the other
hand, has been undertaking the construction of 34
new road projects in Addis Abeba at a cost of over
two billion Birr assigned for 2008/09.
That there was a yearly growth of 12pc in the sector
and that it accounted for over five percent of the
nation’s GDP was stated by Kassu Illala (PhD),
minister of Works and Urban Development, in 2008.
This department directs all construction
undertakings in the country.
Pockets of unoccupied spaces around town, host vast
numbers of labour work seekers who gather to await
‘labour-shoppers’ to come pick them up. The field
around Haya-hulet Mazoria on Haile Gebresilassie
Street, where Shimeles hunts for work is a good
example. There, labourers swarm the field sharing
jokes, all the while exhibiting themselves for the
market that is to come.
That December morning was not Shimeles’ lucky day,
though. He arrived late and all he could do was hang
out with his friends until they figured out what to
do with the rest of the day.
“I
had a delivery [of pastry] to make early in the
morning, and I could not make it,” he said.
He
survives on whatever little he earns consistently
from the delivery rounds and the occasional labour
he lends to the construction sector. The cost of
construction labour in the city stands at an average
of 20 Br for an honest day’s work.
Shimeles lives with his older brother who works as a
security guard at a nearby store. Originally from
Wello, in the Amhara Regional State, they came to
Addis looking for work. The sleeping quarters they
share is a moveable sheet metal and wood structure
assembled to resemble a hand-towed cart with a sheet
metal wall and roof all its own. It stands next to
the shop that Shimeles’ brother guards, and is moved
in front of the store gate after closing hours. A
room, bed and road-block all in one!
Upon the contractors’ arrival at the field at
Haya-hulet Mazoria, the scene immediately turns into
one resembling the traditional livestock market. A
labourer’s capacity is assessed, choices are made;
prices openly negotiated; and deals struck.
“Had I arrived on time, I would have been
negotiating prices with the contractor,” Shimeles
says, regarding his missed opportunity at the
“auction.”
“We [labourers] set a price for the day, and try and
stand our ground as much as the bargaining room
allows us to.”
But in the end, it is either the contractor (who has
ample options to choose from), or, more often, one
labourer who gets to set the final price of the day.
“Maybe the guy did not work the previous day, and is
desperate for what little he can get, so he agrees
for as little as 20 Br,” Shimeles states. “But on a
day we do manage to hold our ground, and if our
pockets are not that shallow, we can get up to 30
Br.”
The hiring agreement does not end with the dealings
of pay alone. No formal contracts are signed, for
instance. A verbal consent is binding in this case –
at least to the labourer, and what may be a day’s
worth of work, or a couple of years’ worth of
contract may emanate from as simple a transaction as
this.
But there is a catch. Employment schemes vary from
contractor to contractor, and day-long contracts pay
more than weekly or bi-weekly payment schemes do.
The tacit rule is that longer contracts translate
into job security, and the labourers settle for
lesser pay.
It
is this predicament that the labour market is faced
with: amidst such demand for, and abundance of,
labour, how is it possible to balance pay and human
need? Another question that begs to be addressed is:
“If demand is so apparent, why are labour prices in
construction not swelling?”
“It is the abundance of cheap labour that makes it
cheap in the first place,” says Bereket Gossaye,
materials and data collection supervisor at a site
Enyi Construction is operating. “It is a resource
that is still untapped.”
One way to address the issue is looking back at
recent history, where construction labours spiked,
and assessing the underlying reasons.
“It was a common, yearly phenomenon [October to
December] when much of the labourers from rural
parts head back home to help in the harvest,” Sre’at
Ayele, a private contractor who has studied the
sector for nearly a decade, states. “The scarcity
always used to lead the city labourers to raise
prices.”
Sre’at associates the large scale migration to Addis
with the commencement of the government housing
constructions. The massive scale condominium
projects, coupled with the inflation that hit the
economy, awaited the return of migrant labourers
such as Shimeles with labour prices that had risen
as high as 30 Br and 35 Br - an all time high for
the sector.
It
was at this stage in the life of the market that
Getahun Belew came to Addis Abeba from Gashena in
the Amhara Regional State. He was a young man, 19
years old, who quickly found work at a project of
Enyi Construction – the road construction crossing
the Airport-Megenagna portion of the ring road, near
Anbessa City Bus headquarters.
Getahun earns 20 Br a day, paid to him every 15
days, and has been working on Enyi’s site as a
labourer since September, 2008.
“I
am grateful to have found work,” he says.
By
10 O’clock in the morning, the field at Haya-hulet
Mazoria is cleared out, most labourers having been
conveyed to their newfound work for the day. The
only ones remaining are those stubborn enough to
afford to uphold their original prices, and the very
few skilled labourers such as masons, carpenters,
and plasterers. Professionals cost more, and are
needed few in number on site.
The transportation to work sites is not much
different from livestock transportation as labourers
are carried on dump trucks, pickup trucks, and at
times on loader buckets to wherever the site is
located.
On
site, too, conditions are no walk in the park.
Labour is needed for the heavy duty tasks that are
reserved for earth moving machinery, especially in
this day and age. Use of machinery is an option left
to the whim and financial capability of the
contractor.
The endless embrace of dust that only a summer wind
can create, the pile of rubble the sites leave
behind as the work progresses, not to mention the
endless noise add as percussion to the rhythm of the
buzzing city orchestra giving signs of a nearby
construction site. A case in point is the project
the Addis Abeba city administration sub-contracted
to Enyi Construction – the site where Getahun works.
Wearing battered rags as makeshift masks to keep the
dust and debris out of their lungs, Getahun et al
tiptoe on the scaffoldings to deliver concrete
mixes, blocks and water for the professionals that
lay them in place.
The scaffoldings that are used as access stairs, and
at times bridges over deep holes in the earth dug
out by the labourers themselves, are made of slender
eucalyptus stems. Although they have been proven
sturdy for the purpose, these structures have also
been found to have risk factors.
“Breakage due to aged stems, and poor carpentry are
some of the injury and death risks posed by these
scaffoldings,” says Getahun. “Coupled with the
sorely lacking safety equipment, it is a serious
problem.”
He
recalls having to get health treatment on his own,
when he and a couple of his colleagues had gotten
sunburns. He spoke of how he had to borrow some
money from his friends for the treatment while the
company processed his compensation. He and his
colleagues learned, the hard way, the value of the
sombrero-like straw hats that labourers are known to
wear.
International and local labour proclamations are
strict about these health and safety related issues.
The Ethiopian law proclaims that it is the
obligation and duty of the employer to see to a
worker’s comlete treatment and compensation for any
injury and damage sustained by the labourer on site.
Employers are instructed to make an accident report
immediately after an accident occurs to the Work
Environment Monitoring and Training Division, under
the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA).
Many, however, do not do so due to lack of
information or the absence of a standard directive
for the construction industry.
According to labour investigators at MoLSA, 4,700
cases relating to work injuries or deaths were filed
in 2003/2004, the most recent survey results. The
International Labour Organisation (ILO) reports that
annually, workers around the world suffer
approximately 270 million occupational hazards, and
two million deaths from occupational accidents and
work-related diseases.
However, if it is not the safety or pay conditions
that confront the labourer, it is most likely to be
the site supervisors.
“It is mainly their laziness and failure to
understand the cost issues involved that fuels the
discord,” Dawit Hailegabriel, an architect, claims.
“For example, concrete mixers cost 35 Br a day in
rent. So every minute spent by labourers chatting,
piles up on the overall cost of construction.”
Another architect, Natnaiel Solomon, argues that
labourers are selective of work-type and load.
“They are reluctant to do the labour intensive work
such as mass earth digging, and hauling,” he says,
“and may be active during [the not so taxing]
concrete mixing. The bottom line is, unless followed
up closely, they do not deliver on their end of the
[20 Br wage rate] bargain.”
Getahun mentioned that he was penalised in cash for
having been found sitting around and chatting while
on duty. Punishments involving pay-cuts are common
on the site he works for if labourers do something
wrong, he says.
Lunch hour is probably something that most long for
at a construction site; at least Getahun thinks so.
A canteen is always in close proximity to a
construction site in Addis. The typical
owner/hostess of the establishment is a middle aged
female. Commonly known in Amharic as “Zinbo shai
bet” (literally, “Canteen O’Flies”), a typical
canteen would have bamboo or reinforced straw walls
with plastic linings and a shade masquerading as a
roof.
It
is common for the labourers and some of the skilled
labour to chip in for the erection of this cafeteria
at the beginning phase of a project at a site. Once
erect, services commence in what has a deep sense of
family among the labourers and the owner of the
establishment.
The lady is often the voice of reason among the
testosterone pumped labourers. She mediates
disputes, calms rattled nerves, and provides the
role of a mother-figure: feeding and nurturing all.
The lady at one such canteen at the Enyi site was
comforting one of Getahun’s angry colleagues who had
just gotten in a fight with an older driver.
“He is old. What do you expect?” she said, “He is
the one who disrespected himself. You should not
beat yourself up over this nonsense.”
Working for meagre profits a month, she provides
food and drinks to the site operatives at
rock-bottom prices. Tea, for example, sells at an
average 50 cents.
Lunch costs an average six Birr for Beyayenetu (an
assortment of wot (stew), three or four varieties of
vegetable dishes on a bed of injera, the Ethiopian
flat bread). At every meal, the labourer is paying a
third of his/her daily earnings for lunch alone.
Cooking is not an option due to time, and financial
constraints, according to Getahun.
Luckily, there exists a credit package (a tab in the
form of a battered notebook that everything is
signed into) at the canteen. On pay day, the
labourers come to settle their accounts with the
owner. She plays the role of guardian and a
psychiatrist of sorts. It is there that labourers
get relief from the day long tension that has their
muscles pumping and their hearts racing.
Since these labourers cannot afford the luxury of a
single, they mostly live in groups. Getahun, too,
lives with three of his friends in a four by four
metre single room near the Bole District office for
which they pay a monthly rent of 200 Br.
Paychecks, however, are not always clean money.
“They (the labourers) cut deals with site
timekeepers to falsify records of their
productiveness and overtime calculations,” says
architect Dawit Hailegabriel.
Labourers themselves were reluctant to acknowledge
these allegations, but Bereket Gossaye at Enyi
suggests that there is definite embezzlement going
on.
Road construction, in particular, is susceptible as
it takes place in an open unprotected space that is
difficult to control, Bereket says.
Back from lunch (paid for in honest money, or
otherwise), the afternoon session of the anthill
colony buzz gets underway. The sense of oneness that
the canteen glues together goes out the window once
work resumes. In fact, the only place that the unity
seems to function in is the canteen. Apparently,
there is no trade union, nor is there any agency
that manages the labourers.
It
seems like unionisation is a concept alien to a
person that lives on a daily basis; at least in the
cases of Getahun and Shimeles. Bereket lays out
three reasons as to why unionisation has not come
into effect in the construction labour sector.
“There is no continuity in construction projects,
and hence a group formed on one site disbands once
the project is completed,” he said.
The other thing he associates with the situation is
the preference of contractors to deal directly with
the labourers regarding wages.
“They feel it is going to be expensive, having to
deal with associations and agencies.”
Finally, living for the day, and on a subsistence
level, too, has an effect all its own in dealing
with these issues, according to Bereket who feels
that labourers do not even have the time, or energy
to concern themselves with these things.
One aspect of the labour practices that actually may
be addressed through the formation of labour unions
is the case of female labourers, according to
Bereket. “They are the worst hit in the pay
department,” he says. “They earn less for the same
kind, and amount of labour work: around 17 Br a
day.”
The Ethiopian Labour Proclamation upholds the
liberty of the formation of unions as the core of
its functioning. It also prohibits such practices as
discrimination among labour on any basis.
“This is a matter dependent on the attitude of the
employer,” says Eskedar Tefera, special assistant to
the minister at MoLSA. “That is why we resort to
educating employers and labourers rather than
strictly enforcing the rules.”
Employers have to realise that the offence is
punishable by law, she asserts, but says that she
can relate to the female labourers.
One way out, according to Bereket, is the formation
of an agency that brokers deals on behalf of the
labourers.
“It has proven lucrative in the domestic service
industry, and I do not see why it will not work for
construction labour,” he argues.
Meanwhile, Getahun had found himself out of work
when the site closed for the rainy season last June.
He faced a long break, without pay as did all road
and foundation workers. He spent the winter waiting
tables at a local bar until the site work resumed in
October.
“The job paid less than my labour work,” he says,
“and there were five of us living together to be
able to afford housing.”
But at least a single meal was covered in the
arrangement, so he is thankful for that. For Getahun,
that was a taste of what life might be like when the
road project ends.
“Once construction ends, we are going to be
disbanded, and we may not be called back for another
contract,” he expresses his worry. “However, the
company writes us letters of recommendations stating
that we had worked for them.”
What really worried him the most was the fact that
he did not acquire any skills during his stay with
the job.
“All I do is dig and shovel,” he says, “and the road
sector has little to offer in that department,”
adding that working on buildings is far better as he
could spend more time with the professionals and
learn a few crafts such as masonry, plastering and
wall painting, or even carpentry.
“It could have been a good way to improve my
standard of living,” he lamented.
“We cannot afford to keep them employed. Projects
end, and so do relationships,” Bereket disclosed.
“It is only the big contractors that manage to
sustain the labourer as they always have projects in
the pipeline. It may be a while before our next
project, so we have to let them go.”
The ILO states in its minimum wages fixing
convention that “… In the absence of a social
welfare system … [it becomes] difficult to introduce
minimum wage regulations. The balance between a
healthy employment rate [hence, a productive
economy] and the need for the maintenance of social
protection must be upheld for economic growth to
blossom.”
According to the same convention, minimum wage
regulations are strictly designed for the protection
of such wage earners like Getahun and Shimeles.
However, there has been no debate, nor activity
hitherto on policy matters regarding minimum wage
regulations in Ethiopia.
“The Labour Proclamation clearly states that the way
to go, in the nation, is bargaining,” says Solomon
Demissie, director of the Directorate of Harmonious
Industrial Relations at MoLSA. “The underlying
belief is that the process of bargaining shall bring
about a desired, balanced outcome for both the
employer and employee regarding wages.”
It
might be some time before Getahun and Shimeles see
any form of pay increase. Although they are an
integral part of the sector, they still remain
alienated - both in the construction process and in
the consumption of the fancy buildings they helped
build. One little mistake and they might end up on
that field at Haya-hulet Mazoria the following day
looking for work. The employer too does not bother
as there are lots more where he got them from in the
first place.
Yet in the city that is always under construction,
the detours in commute for road construction, the
dust from the dry, uprooted earth, and the constant
noise these sites produce are not even reminders of
the labour involved. Rather the inconveniences these
detours cause, and outcomes - in the form of a
concrete jungle, or an asphalt artery - shall remain
the things associated with the construction boom
Addis Abeba seems to dwell in. |
