Although slavery ‘officially’ ended before the middle of the last century through the declaration of the human rights act, it is argued by some that the Kafala system is a form of ‘neo-slavery’ that was established in the early 1950s to control migrant labour in the Arab Gulf countries (Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants [APMM], 2014; Kakande, 2015). In Saudi Arabia, the capitalist class built prosperous enterprises by exploiting low-paid foreign workers through the Kafala system (Hanieh, 2011). Understanding the Kafala system is critical to this study with its enormous implications for workplace dynamics of control, consent, and resistance. This subsection shows how the Kafala system is manipulated by Saudi sponsors, exploited by firms, and resisted by migrant workers.
4.3.1.1 Free Visa and Tasattur
A phenomenological study conducted by Rahman (2011) shows that there is an ‘illegal’ act of recruitment unofficially known as a ‘free visa’. This type of recruitment formed the black- market for work visas, which is a lucrative business for influential Gulf citizens as it offers them a stable source of income (for the case of Qatar see Pessoa, Harkness and Andrwe, 2014). In this practice, the worker pays an agreed amount of money to the prospective sponsor (an individual citizen known by the Kafeel) to issue the work visa but, upon arrival, he/she is not obliged to work for the sponsor and can search for work elsewhere. However, the worker is still ‘unofficially’ obliged to pay a fixed amount of money (monthly or annual payments) to his/her official sponsor.
The free visa seems to have advantages for both employers and migrants. For firms, hiring free visa migrants is an advantage for three reasons: Firstly, it enables them to avoid the recruitment fees paid to the recruiting agency and the government. Secondly, this category of labour is cheaper and relatively unprotected (Rahman, 2011). Thirdly, hiring such workers enables firms to manipulate the Saudisation requirements as the quota of Saudis to be employed (Nitaqat) is based on the number of legal expatriates registered in the firm’s official papers. For migrants, the free visa seems to be a method that reduces the tight control over their mobility as it enables them to change employers (not sponsors). The ability to change their place of employment (i.e. mobility power) is a huge advantage that legal labourers do not have. The phenomenon of an illegal free visa practice has substantial implications in terms of structuring workplace dynamics; however, there is almost no
empirical research that increases our understanding of this aspect. Notably, the free visa is also closely linked to the other illegal act of tasattur.
Tasattur in Saudi Arabia illustrates how the Kafala system is manipulated by both Saudi and migrant entrepreneurs. Tasattur is an Arabic word for ‘commercial concealment’ and refers to a Saudi citizen who allows an expatriate to use his/her licence and commercial registration to set up a business in return for a fixed amount of money. Like the free visa, this illegal practice is also described as ‘a rentier system that allows the citizen to extract revenues from the expatriate with little or no contribution themselves’ (Kinninmont, 2015: 24). A recent study conducted by Rahman (2018) shows how some Bangladeshi migrants have transformed their positions from labourers to entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. Rahman’s study, however, focuses on the success stories of ‘innovative’ entrepreneurs and overlooks the control mechanisms those migrant entrepreneurs use to exploit their fellow Bangladeshi workers. Whether the capitalist is a Bangladeshi or a Saudi, this will not alter the fact that his or her relations with labour is exploitative by nature. Although the practice of tasattur is widespread in the Gulf countries, there is very limited knowledge about its operation in the workplace. Thus, empirical investigation is needed to understand the dynamics of this practice and how it shapes capital-labour relations.
4.3.1.2 Resistance of Migrant Labour
In the absence of trade unions and due to the immense power the Kafala system gives to employers, migrant workers appear to have almost no bargaining power with their employers. This is exacerbated by the fact that their presence in the country depends on employers’ level of satisfaction with their attitude and performance. In the event of a conflict with an employer, a migrant not only risks his or her job but also their work visa. Based on the limited in-depth qualitative research available (e.g. Budhwar and Mellahi, 2007; Rahman, 2011; Lauring, 2013), firms in Saudi Arabia are generally hierarchically structured with limited employee participation. It can be inferred that Kafala has helped to create a centralised decision-making approach in organisations where the decisions of owners and managers are rendered unquestionable. As described by Mellahi (2007: 85), labour management in Saudi firms tends to be that of a ‘hire and fire culture’ which prefers ‘predominantly employees who fear authority and work with minimum demands’. Similarly, Lauring’s (2013) findings regarding a Danish MNC in Saudi Arabia showed that Danish
managers treated workers of other nationalities (Indian, Egyptian, and Bangladeshi) in ways that were described as very ‘authoritarian’.
To date, research on migrant workers has focused heavily on managers’ perceptions and has overlooked the mechanisms of resistance available to migrants within firms. Previous research (e.g. Rahman, 2011; Alsadiq and Wu, 2015) has shown how migrants avoid the tight control of sponsors (e.g. the free visa), which is also a form of resistance to the Kafala system itself. However, we have limited knowledge of how migrants (especially those who are unskilled) resist the control of sponsors/managers within firms. The recent destruction of property by Indian workers from the Binladin corporation indicates there is some informal organisation of migrant workers based on ethnicity. The main reason for the violence was that workers had been issued exit visas without receiving their wages for the preceding ten months. The response came from the Saudi King himself, who paid most of the workers’ salaries (a total of 27 million USD) (Kumar, 2016). This response showed that migrant workers do have some collective power, as the workers should have negotiated with the management before taking violent action. However, there has been no research into this type of informal organisation of labour in Saudi Arabia.
Many authors interested in Kafala issues have written about the way migrants are viewed as typically exploited, abused, and mistreated (e.g. Budhwar and Mellahi, 2007; Williams and Connell, 2010; Bajracharya and Sijapati, 2012; Kakande, 2015). However, it is crucial to assert that migrants in Saudi Arabia dominate the private sector and occupy jobs on different hierarchical levels (e.g. shop-floor workers, staff managers, and senior managers). Thus, it is inaccurate to generalise and claim that all migrants are being exploited simply because they are governed by the Kafala system. Many questions are raised in this respect: Are skilled migrants in high positions also abused? Are unskilled migrants abused by Saudi or migrant managers? Does the skill of a worker determine the level of exploitation to which he or she is exposed? These and other questions urge us to be sensitive not only to national institutions (e.g. Kafala) but also to power dynamics in the workplace.