Migrant workers: Qatar still to answer for mass wage theft

In conversation, Indian migrant workers to Qatar confirmed this account to me. They were laid off and repatriated without clearing their end-of-service benefits and unpaid salaries following the Covid-19 outbreak.

Migrants rights NGOs, meanwhile, catalogued case after case of wage theft happening to migrant workers in Qatar, the wider Gulf, and other major destination countries. “Wage theft was there before Covid-19 and the pandemic outbreak amplified the situation,” said Sumitha Shaanthinni Kishna, Chair of Migrant Forum in Asia. “Migrant workers depend entirely on their wages to provide for themselves and their families. By robbing off their wages, the employer not only pushes workers into trouble but also his family and their future too.”

In 2022, seven years after the reforms were first introduced, Qatar's Ministry of Labour recorded 5,717 wage-related violations.

Rolling the dice

At times the story ends with restitution, albeit delayed by months or even years. Babu, for example, managed to claim his lost end-of-service benefit by turning to Migrant Forum in Asia for help. “I managed to get 18 co-workers to fight for our wages,” Babu said. “We were eligible for $161,410. And in 2021, the MFA managed to get us back our money. They helped others too in the following months.”

Others are still fighting. Kiran Paul (name changed), who migrated to Qatar in 2012 and worked on the Al Bayt stadium, is still waiting to receive his due. He had operated an asphalt mixing plant in exchange for $1215 a month, and had often worked unpaid overtime (another form of wage theft). In spring 2021, he received a letter terminating his employment, but also promising him his last two months of unpaid wages and the end of service benefit accrued over nearly a decade of work. Paul said he stayed in Qatar for nearly a year waiting for the money to come through. But like Babu, he was forced to return emptyhanded once survival became difficult.

“We had worked for 10 hours, but we were paid only for eight hours. We are ready to give up that overtime money. But we have to get our pending salary and end-of-service benefits,” Paul said. “The company has to give me 41,000 Qatari rials [approx. $11,260]. In India, that is huge money for us. If I am not going to get it, then life will be horrible.”

That may well be the outcome for Paul. He added: “Now, the game has started. We are losing hope. Will the company of the Qatar government bother to pay us? I don't know.”