Exclusive Migrant workers who built luxury offices used by Qatar's
2022 football World Cup organisers have told the Guardian they have not
been paid for more than a year and are now working illegally from
cockroach-infested lodgings.
Officials in Qatar's Supreme
Committee for Delivery and Legacy have been using offices on the 38th
and 39th floors of Doha's landmark al-Bidda skyscraper – known as the
Tower of Football – which were fitted out by men from Nepal, Sri Lanka
and India who say they have not been paid for up to 13 months' work.
The
project, a Guardian investigation shows, was directly commissioned by
the Qatar government and the workers' plight is set to raise fresh
doubts over the autocratic emirate's commitment to labour rights as
construction starts this year on five new stadiums for the World Cup.
The
offices, which cost £2.5m to fit, feature expensive etched glass,
handmade Italian furniture, and even a heated executive toilet, project
sources said. Yet some of the workers have not been paid, despite
complaining to the Qatari authorities months ago and being owed wages as
modest as £6 a day.
By the end of this year, several hundred
thousand extra migrant workers from some of the world's poorest
countries are scheduled to have travelled to Qatar to build World Cup
facilities and infrastructure. The acceleration in the building
programme comes amid international concern over a rising death toll
among migrant workers and the use of forced labour.
"We don't know
how much they are spending on the World Cup, but we just need our
salary," said one worker who had lost a year's pay on the project. "We
were working, but not getting the salary. The government, the company:
just provide the money."
The migrants are squeezed seven to a room, sleeping on thin, dirty
mattresses on the floor and on bunk beds, in breach of Qatar's own
labour standards. They live in constant fear of imprisonment because
they have been left without paperwork after the contractor on the
project, Lee Trading and Contracting, collapsed. They say they are now
being exploited on wages as low as 50p an hour.
Their case was
raised with Qatar's prime minister by Amnesty International last
November, but the workers have said 13 of them remain stranded in Qatar.
Despite having done nothing wrong, five have even been arrested and
imprisoned by Qatari police because they did not have ID papers. Legal
claims lodged against the former employer at the labour court in
November have proved fruitless. They are so poor they can no longer
afford the taxi to court to pursue their cases, they say.
A
35-year-old Nepalese worker and father of three who ssaid he too had
lost a year's pay: "If I had money to buy a ticket, I would go home."
Qatar's
World Cup organising committee confirmed that it had been granted use
of temporary offices on the floors fitted out by the unpaid workers. It
said it was "heavily dismayed to learn of the behaviour of Lee Trading
with regard to the timely payment of its workers". The committee
stressed it did not commission the firm. "We strongly disapprove and
will continue to press for a speedy and fair conclusion to all cases,"
it said.
Jim Murphy, the shadow international development
secretary, said the revelation added to the pressure on the World Cup
organising committeeafter . "They work out of this building, but so far
they can't even deliver justice for the men who toiled at their own HQ,"
he said.
Sharan Burrow, secretary general of the International
Trade Union Confederation, said the workers' treatment was criminal. "It
is an appalling abuse of fundamental rights, yet there is no concern
from the Qatar government unless they are found out," she said. "In any
other country you could prosecute this behaviour."
Contracts show the project was commissioned by Katara Projects, a
Qatar government organisation under the auspices of the office of the
then heir apparent, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who is now the
emir. He also heads the supreme committee, the World Cup organising
body. The committee is spending at least £4bn building new stadiums for
the tournament, which has become mired in allegations of bribery, while
there is disbelief at the prospect of playing the tournament in Qatar's
50C summer heat.
Katara said it terminated its agreement with Lee
Trading when it discovered the mistreatment of workers and non-payment
of wages, and made efforts to repatriate those affected or find them new
jobs. It said several workers had been compensated after court
settlements. "If there are employees who were not repatriated, did not
find employment
or did not receive compensation, we would be happy to engage in any
effort with the ministry of labour and ministry of interior to rectify
the situation," a spokesman said.
The problems at the Tower of
Football workers are not isolated, despite Qatar's pledges to monitor
salary payments and abolish the kafala sponsorship system, which stops
migrant workers changing job or leaving Qatar without their employer's
consent. In 2012 and 2013, 70 labourers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka
died from falls or strikes by objects, 144 died in traffic accidents and
56 killed themselves, the government's own figures show. Dozens more
young migrant workers die mysteriously in their sleep from suspected
heart attacks every summer.
The Guardian discovered more projects
where salaries had not been paid. They included a desert camp of 65
workers who had not been paid for several months, were sleeping eight to
a room, and were living with dirty drinking water, filthy, unplumbed
toilets and no showers.