On National Sport Day, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy issued new guidelines to protect the migrant workers involved in the World Cup construction projects in response to world-wide condemnation of workers’ deaths and FIFA’s demand for constructive action.
The charter will ensure that the workers are paid promptly and also their living conditions are upto global standards, the Committee said. Contractors will also be required to set up bank accounts for all their employees to ensure proper transfer of funds. This charter will be submitted to FIFA and then the European Parliament. International labour organisations are still no convinced that this charter is a serious effort towards improving the prevailing conditions in Qatar though. The Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), which had carried out an inspection in the country last year, has condemned the charter as “an insult to the internationally accepted system of setting labour standards”. The Geneva based organisation has pointed out that “instead of pushing the government to make a systematic overhaul of its labour policies, the committee’s guidelines merely apply to the contractors of the stadiums”, and not the construction industry as a whole. BWI General Secretary, Ambet Yuson, in a statement said “ The guidance is not legally binding, does not guarantee workers’ rights to change employer, their right to leave the country or their right to join a trade union to bargain collectively for decent pay and conditions, and it applies only to a tiny proportion of migrant construction workers in Qatar.”
by Qatar Today
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