The better life

Each time there’s an economic crunch, the immigrant labour force is targeted for taking jobs away from us. When we get on our boxes and demand they be sent back, we conveniently forget they came here for the jobs we didn’t want.

Of course, along the way, industries seized on the opportunity – imported labour was cheaper and worked harder, and in times of disputes, employers with an exploitative streak held the upper hand.

Still, one suspects that Malaysians who worked in foreign lands under inhospitable conditions will sympathise with the immigrant workforce, as I occasionally do.

Back in the 1970s, the “Gulf” boom in Kerala, India, saw youths barely out of their teens head for the Middle East in quest of a dream – to get decent jobs, and earn enough to lift their families out of debt and poverty.

Many took on even menial jobs in the various Middle East sultanates, in return for salaries they could never earn at home. They set out with the barest of belongings but returned laden with gold, electronic gadgets and enough money to buy land and build houses.

Malaysia, since the 1980s, has been the “Gulf” for many unskilled workers in the region – Indonesia and the Philippines at first, and these days, Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam and India, among others.

They are almost everywhere you look – petrol kiosks, hypermarkets, restaurants, night markets – and permeate almost every aspect of our lives.

Now, they’re turning up where you least expect them! This realisation dawned upon me when the missus and I decided to get an air-conditioning unit for our guest room recently.

Once, it was the locals that would come to install air-con units, and their modus operandi was similar – they breezed in, drilled the walls, created a mighty mess of dust and rubble, mounted the units and went their way, leaving us to clean up the mess.

This time, the guy called me the previous evening to confirm the appointment – the accent puzzled me, because he sure as heck didn’t sound local.

The next morning, two Bangladeshi chaps drew up in front of our gates in a small lorry, and I had my reservations at first. Sure, I’ve dealt with Bangladeshis in restaurants, petrol pumps and hypermarkets, but air-con installers?

The main guy – there’s always one – spoke in almost fluent English, asking me where I wanted the unit fixed and then explained how he would route the electrical connection and mount the compressor.

He then proceeded with the mandatory drilling, holding a plastic bag under the drill to ensure none of the rubble fell on the floor.

Sure, there was a fine powder of dust around the area later, but this was much easier for us to clean up than broken bits of wall on the floor!

Then, they were done, with the minimum of fuss. The main guy gave me his card, and told me to call him if there was any issue or if my air-con units needed servicing.

The shop from which I bought the air-con unit and for which these guys worked probably found it cheaper to hire them than contract the work to local installers. Plus, they worked on a Sunday, turning out a neater job than all my previous air-con installers.

The main guy told me he’d been working in Malaysia for 13 years and would stay as long as he could.

Not an easy life, perhaps, but he must be making a decent living by the standards back home, like many of my friends who went to the “Gulf” in the 1970s and made their pile. I can identify with that.

Oh, and the air-con works fine ...

- THE STAR