SCWs-Sub- Contract Workers

Here on camp, at almost every department, we have sub-contract workers. Most of them are from Eastern Asia; places like India, Nepal and Tibet. They work for either Kulak, or PPI. Each department has a few, or more, that do the grunt work of the jobs. Many of them do the skilled labor to, like working on trucks and doing carpentry work. They range in age from 18 to 40, but none older then that. You might have two guys working together doing the same job and one of them is a convict and the other has a PHD. And everyone seems to get along.

They kind make around 500 bucks a month, which might sound like a little, but is really good pay to send back home. They tell me that 500 bucks is enough to live for about 6 months without working. One of the guys who has been here for 3 years has bought a house for his whole family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and everyone’s kids and they don’t even have to work. I would be like if I made 20 grand a month.

I have taken a interest in the guys so they seem to have taken on in me. I go to the makeshift, hole-in-the-wall, break room they have and hang out with them. They don’t eat the same place I do, there company provides meals that they bring to the worksite. They like to share their food with me and explain what they eat back home. They like to think about food back home like I do. The food the company provides isn’t good so I bring them things like milk and snacks from the dinning area for them. They like milk but don’t seem to get it form there company.

The guys are really friendly and nice; they call me “boss” which is something I am not used to. In there culture they never see, let alone talk to their boss, he is like an office high up and a middle man delegates what he says. So it is a little odd for them to interact with the boss, although they like it. However, they don’t like when I do work. If they see me lifting or moving anything, they immediately run over and say, “No no boss, I get this, it ok, I will handle it.” They often insist that I give them the keys to my truck because it is dirty. They take it down to the fuel point and fill it up, then drive it to the wash-rack and detail it for me, they don’t take no for an answer.

They are hard workers, and enjoy work. No matter what job they are given they are determined to be the best at it, master any task. It could be sorting trash or being a security guard, they take their job very seriously. I respect them, but God forbid they ever start coming to the US in large number, the Mexicans would be out of work, let alone most of US workers.

They are really good at there jobs. They had some of them picking up trash around parking lots when they noticed some US workers having trouble with their truck. They Indian guys fixed it better then any US worker could with all the tools in the world. Many of the Indians worked on cars and generators back home, but since they don’t have replacement parts they can pretty much rebuild or make any parts they need. They can do impressive things with tools. So they have started putting the workers in areas that they excel at, which is working out awesome. Like I said before I am impressed. To be truthful they are harder workers then most of the US workers here.