Focus: Compliance Alert: Forced labour in Qatar - the ball is in the company's court now!

Abstract

22 | International Union Rights | 25/2 FOCUS | TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN THE MENA COUNTRIES The seemingly endless supply of cheap labour is not a ‘natural’ phenomenon. Both poverty and the production of a global work force vulnerable to forced labour are socially and economically constructed conditions This article discusses the results of ECCHRs investigation into labour abuses and forced labour in the construction sector in the Gulf and the structural reasons of why these cases cannot be brought to the courts. It also discusses the question of legal responsibility of companies along their labour supply chains and the potential for trade unions to provoke change. The problem In 2010 Qatar won its bid to host the FIFA Championship 2022. Soon after construction works started for new World Cup stadiums and infrastructure, the first media reports revealed devastating working conditions for the migrant labourers. Football temples were always symbols of passion for sports and fair play, for international understanding and fun. Suddenly they were claimed to be built by the hands of ‘slaves’. The story of Qatar is not so different from other globalisation tales, it just happened fast track. Since the early 1990s global capitalism is on the rise. Transnational corporations blasted the chains of national borders and extended their market power to a global level. Today the core market dynamics of demand and supply apply to a worldwide marketplace. The borders for migrants remain closed, unless they feed the demands of a flourishing transnational labour market. In countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal or Kenya, there is a growing number of ‘working poor’ who are not only poor in terms of money, but also education, skill-training, access to health, sanitation and so on. These various factors of exclusion make them vulnerable for labour exploitation. If they are offered a job abroad, away from their families and for a salary of no more than 400 Euros a month, many will accept. In the eyes of global market economy they become a seemingly endless supply of cheap labour force. This supply is not simply the consequence of poor people looking for work, as much as poverty is not a ‘natural’ phenomenon. Both, poverty, and the production of a global work force vulnerable to forced labour are socially and economically constructed conditions to feed a cheap labour demand that ensures the profitability of certain economic sectors1. On the labour demand side in Qatar, the multibillion euro contracts for the construction of the FIFA World Cup infrastructure get awarded to transnational companies from China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Europe, such as Vinci, Porr, Besix or Hochtief. They form part of a system that generates patterns of workers’ rights infringements in Qatar. Since 2010 ever more reports of civil society organisations, investigative journalists and UN bodies denounce the labour conditions of migrant workers. They speak of people who seek an income to feed their families and must migrate abroad for it. Of people that pay high recruitment fees, even though these are illegal, in Qatar and in many home countries. Recruitment agents and sub-agents in several tiers from the capital down to the home village - all demand their share and corruption often lubricates the system. It is the workers – not the employer – who end up paying all fees. Often they sell their land and little possessions. With great debts they arrive in a country of a different language and culture, and where they are prohibited from joining or forming a trade union. They hand over their passports to their employer to get residence papers. They are accommodated in labour camps, often in a deplorable state. Waiting for their legalisation for many months, they are fully dependant on their employers. Without a job they lose their visa. Without a visa, they fear detention and deportation. But they cannot return to their families with empty hands, still indebted. So even if they get paid only 200 euro instead of the promised 400 euro, they will still accept the job: ‘the absence of choice, made the choice simple’ (Shahidul Alam, The best years of my life, 2016). A legal analysis shows that we are dealing here with forced labour rather than slavery, where a person would...