ILO quickly issued a rebuttal, described by Owen Tudor, head of the UK TUC’s international department, as “one of the most astonishing statements ever.”  

Despite the diplomatic tone, the ILO message was clear. Headed ‘Charter took only some ILO recommendations’, the ILO statement dismissed the implication by the Qataris that the UN labour rights body had endorsed their updated rules to protect workers building the stadiums and training grounds for the football World Cup in eight years’ time.

According to Tudor, at a 14 February 2014 European Parliament hearing on workers’ rights in the run up to the 2022 event: “There was consensus that the Qatari World Cup organising committee’s revised charter was a sham, without sufficient enforcement mechanisms, and covering only a small fraction of the 500,000 migrants who will be building a new Qatar over the next few years.”

Almost all of Qatar’s private sector workforce is migrant labour, living in crowded, insanitary and squalid accommodation and working long hours in blistering heat with few if any health and safety controls. An estimated 400 Nepalis died in Qatar in the last year. And statistics obtained from the Indian Embassy in Qatar in February revealed more than 450 Indian migrants had died in Qatar in the last two years.

This compares to the London 2012 Olympic record of no fatalities at all. According to TUC’s Owen Tudor, this contrast owes much to the role played by unions. He said “union organised workplaces are safer than ones without. In Qatar, where raising safety concerns can leave you unemployed and trapped, workers need the protection and confidence of unions to speak out.”

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the global union confederation ITUC, said: “Qatar is choosing to prolong the system of modern slavery which is the root cause of the incredibly high death toll for workers. It doesn’t have to be that way but there is no political will for workers’ rights. Qatar is building its modern nation with the labour of migrant workers and deliberately chooses to maintain a system that treats these workers as less than human.”

She added: “Charters which are not enforceable and rely on company self-audits have been proven not to work. Without legal rights and free trade unions, workers will not be able to speak openly about safety concerns without fear and will continue to pay with their lives.”

SAFETY NIL  At the current death rate, more people will die building the 2022 World Cup infrastructure than will play in the event. The global union body ITUC estimates the death toll could hit 4,000. Around 80 per cent of migrant worker deaths are from heart attacks, suicide and workplace “accidents”. The construction fatality rate in Qatar is eight times that of the UK.

CAPTIVE WORKFORCE  Migrants in Qatar are denied employment rights, fearing for their jobs if they speak out about the dire conditions. They make up 99 per cent of the private sector workforce, cannot change jobs without their employer’s permission and do not have the right to unionise or strike. Leaving, even to escape abuse, results in imprisonment or deportation.

POOR COMPARISON  Qatari nationals are on average the richest people in the world. The average construction worker, inevitably a migrant with few rights, toils 15 hours a day, six days a week in searing heat, for less than £5 a day.

UNFAIR PLAY  In 2010, football’s ruling body FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Since then it has stood by as the prestige facilities have been stained with migrant workers’ blood. Thousands of migrants are, like this Nepalese worker, injured or killed every year.

SEPARATE WORLDS Migrant workers are crowded 14 to a room, in squalid, insanitary accommodation. They are segregated in remote camps and denied entry to stores, restaurants and other public places.

CRY FOUL  The ITUC-led ‘Re-run the Vote’ campaign has coordinated protests against the Qatari 2022 organisers and FIFA, football’s global governing body. Exposing the FIFA-sanctioned labour exploitation and bloody track record of the Qatari organisers, unions have won some concessions but say they will continue to demand proper employment rights for the migrant workforce.

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Foul play

If the 2022 Qatar World Cup organisers thought they could head off criticism of deadly labour abuses by publishing a long promised Workers’ Safety Standards charter in February 2014 - and misleadingly claiming they had the backing of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) - they were wrong.

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Further information
• ITUC
• Re-run the Vote
• The case against Qatar, ITUC    report, March 2014.

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