Human Rights Group denounces Qatari exploitation of World Cup workers

By James M.Dorsey
A leadinghuman rights group has joined the international trade union movement in usingQatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup to pressure the energy-rich Gulf state tobring migrant labor conditions in line with international standards and allowfor the emergence of independent trade unions that can engage in collectivebargaining.
At thelaunch of a 146-page report, "Buildinga better World Cup: Protecting migrant workers," Human Rights Watch joinedthe International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in rejecting Qatari moves tofend off a global campaign calling for a boycott of Qatar and stripping itsright to host the tournament because of migrant labor conditions.
The reportthat documents a host of problems, including unpaid wages, illegal salarydeductions, crowded and unsanitary labor camps, and unsafe working conditionswas launched a day after Qatari labor minister Nassir bin Abdulla Hamidi metfor the first time since trade unions last year started pressuring the Gulf statewith ITUC secretary general Sharan Burrow.
During themeeting on the side line of the general assembly of the International LaborOrganization in Geneva, Mr. Hamidi refused to go beyond proposed changes forworkers’ councils rather than independent trade unions and the replacement ofQatar’s sponsorship system with a system of contracts between employers andemployees that does not give workers full freedom to seek alternativeemployment. Ms. Burrow was quoted after the meeting as saying that Qatariconcessions failed to meet ITUC demands for application of internationalstandards.
Qatar hasrepeatedly denied that it exploits foreign labor. The Qatari Labor Ministrydenies that workers are being exploited. "The Ministry has received nocomplaint of forced labor and it is inconceivable that such a thing exists inQatar as the worker may break his contract and return to his country wheneverhe wishes and the employer cannot force him to remain in the country againsthis will," the ministry said in a letter to Human Rights Watch.
The humanrights group published the letter as part of its report on the same day thatQatar-owned Al Jazeera English broadcast interviews with foreign workersstanding in front of the labor ministry in Doha to complain about the fact thattheir employers had not paid them for months.
Foreignlabor accounts for more than 90 percent of Qatar’s workforce in a country withthe highest percentage of migrants to citizens in the world.
The ITUC with175 million members in 153 countries has threatened Qatar with a boycottcampaign of the 2022 World Cup if it fails to bring the conditions of up to onemillion primarily Asian workers engaged in construction of stadiums and otherhuge infrastructure projects in line with international standards. It is hasprompted world soccer body FIFA to also pressure Qatar and is demanding thatFIFA make labor conditions one of its criteria in awarding future world cups.
The HumanRights Watch report documents what the group describes as “pervasive employerexploitation and abuse of workers in Qatar’s construction industry, madepossible by an inadequate legal and regulatory framework that grants employersextensive control over workers and prohibits migrant workers from exercisingtheir rights to free association and collective bargaining.” It also addressesthe government’s failure to enforce laws that on paper are designed to protectworker rights and lays bay that workers face in reporting complaints or seekingredress.
"Thegovernment needs to ensure that the cutting-edge, high-tech stadiums it'splanning to build for World Cup fans are not built on the backs of abused andexploited workers," Human Rights Watchs's Middle East director Sarah LeahWhitson said at the launch of the report in Doha. "Workers buildingstadiums won't benefit from Qatar's general promise to end the sponsorshipsystem. They need a deadline for this to happen before their work for the FIFAgames starts."
The report focusesamong other issues on worker safety, highlighting the discrepancy between the numberof construction worker deaths reported by foreign embassies and the numberreported by the government. Like ITUC, the report uses the reporting on Nepalideaths as one of its case studies.
While theNepali embassy reported 191 Nepali worker deaths in 2010, and the Indianembassy reported 98 Indian migrant deaths -- including 45 deaths of young,low-income workers due to cardiac arrest, so far in 2012 -- the labor ministry listedonly six deaths in the past three years.
The HumanRights Watch follows an earlier ITUC study that equated the working conditionsof primarily Asian foreign laborers in Qatar as modern-day slavery. Ms. Burrowsaid in a statementprior to her meeting with Mr. Hamidi that she would “set out for Qatar’s LaborMinister the legal steps the government needs to take to ensure freedom ofassociation and collective bargaining for its huge migrant workforce. Laborlaws introduced in Qatar should be in line with international standards as setout by the ILO.  The law needs to allowworkers the right to form and join their own unions, and freely elect their ownrepresentatives without the government dictating who they can vote for,” shesaid.
Ms. Burrownoted that labor conditions were one reason why the International OlympicCommittee (IOC) last month disqualified Qatar’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics.“The IOC’s evaluation of Doha’s Olympics bid stated ‘training and accommodatingan experienced Olympic Games workforce to deliver this infrastructure withinthe required timeframe presents a major challenge and risk,’” she said.
James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. RajaratnamSchool of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University inSingapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle EastSoccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.
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