Qatar World Cup in slave labour spotlight

More than 100 migrant workers building the al-Wakrah stadium, one of Qatar’s 2022 football World Cup venues, have been receiving only 45p an hour or £4.90 ($8.20, €6.20) a day.

The pay levels were revealed first by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, which found the workers, mainly from poor countries in South-east Asia, were labouring in fierce heat for up to 30 days a month to earn their pittance.

One worker spoke of being hired on a basic monthly £136 and working 64 hours of overtime, for which he received £29. The salary, for an assumed 48-hour week, represents 64p an hour, and the overtime 45p.

These rates appear to contravene the welfare rules of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar’s management body for the tournament.

The revelations follow earlier statements by migrant workers that they had not been paid for about a year after fitting out the supreme committee’s offices. These workers, whose wages ceased with the collapse of Lee Trading, the Qatari government’s local contractor for the project, are said now to be stranded and living in squalor.

The migrant workers’ circumstances even brought protests from the UK parliament.

Labour MP Jim Sheridan, a member of the Commons culture committee, asked: “How can anybody enjoy watching the 2022 World Cup knowing the people who built the stadiums had to endure these conditions? Qatar should put on hold the construction until we can get these issues sorted out.”

The low pay contrasts with Qatar’s spending of £134bn on preparations for the tournament.

Mohamad Ahmed Ali Hussain Hamad, project manager at Amana, the Qatar company that employs the workers, said an audit had “identified the need of further clarification with regards to workers’ pay slips and we are working with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy to clear up the same”.

The supreme committee said it too wanted to “rectify any non-compliance”.

However, Amana said the workers were accommodated in comfortable well-equipped apartment blocks and none had complained that identity documents had been confiscated.

Supreme committee members claimed they were “dismayed” that the employees who had worked on the offices were still unpaid.
Zaha Hadid, the British architect who designed the al-Wakrah stadium, and whose practice is to receive a multi-million-pound fee for the project, said he and his fellow design consultancy Aecom were working with the Qataris to “ensure that any outstanding issues are resolved”.

The disquiet is against a background of international protests at the deaths of hundreds of migrant workers from construction and road accidents, suicide and health problems.