Labourers protest over pay dues

MORE than a hundred labourers descended on the Indian embassy yesterday to protest against non-payment of wages and inhuman living conditions.

The majority of the 107 men had walked the 20km journey from Street 44 in the Industrial Area to register their complaints as they were unable to afford the taxi fare.

Last night an embassy official said 40 of them would be flown home immediately, with the rest returning within the next week.

However, their experience has left a bitter taste in the mouths of the men - many of whom are severely out of pocket.

Talking to Gulf Times, the labourers said they had originally paid money to an agency in India to broker employment opportunities for them in Qatar.

Almost all of them were skilled workers – technicians, welders, riggers and fielders – but when they began to arrive in June some were given unskilled labouring jobs to do after the company that hired them lost a major contract.

Pouring into the embassy at 10am yesterday, the men said they were only demanding what was promised to them back in India; decent food, humane accommodation; salaries ranging from QR1,200 to QR1,500, and a little dignity.

Some also complained of maltreatment and long hours when they were told they would work 10-hour days with an hour’s break.

“It’s not like the company kept a card or a tracking system for the number of hours we put in every day,” said one disgruntled employee. “Usually it was around 12 hours or so.”

As for the accommodation, many of the men described conditions like living in “a garbage dump” with 10 to 12 people to a room.

They also complained that their daily food rations comprised “two extremely thin rotis (flat bread) in the morning, a small portion of rice and an even smaller portion of vegetables for both lunch and dinner”.

“I was part of the first batch of 14 labourers that arrived on June 3 and was given a one-time QR300 payment and was put to do petty work such as cementing the next day,” explained Nazesh Kumar.

As more technicians arrived in July and August they were put on different work sites and given jobs like cementing to do. A handful of the men protested and refused to do the work.

“The guy (manager) would threaten to take us to the police and hit us, rather than explaining what was going on,” alleged Mohamed.

Another employee bared his back to reveal a wound with stitches following a work-related accident. The stitches should have been taken out, he said, but no one had bothered to take him back to the hospital.

Most of the men claimed to have paid between Rs50,000 and 60,000 to an agent in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, where most of them come from. Other workers hail from Mumbai and Kerala.

However, other than a first paltry payment of QR300 to the first arrivals, the men say they did not receive a penny of their promised wages.

The news of the men’s plight first came to light on Wednesday when about 80 labourers approached the embassy asking for help, again arriving on foot.

An embassy official said they had been talking to the company concerned and were hopefully in a position to send all the fed-up workers home.

“Today, a company official has met us and promised to pay all outstanding dues to those who performed duties (as some never even worked) and send the labourers back to India in less than a week’s time,” an embassy spokesman told Gulf Times.

“A group of 40 individuals is heading back tonight,” he added.

According to the embassy, the company lost the contract for which it was hiring the labourers just as they started arriving in Doha and it had done its best to use the men in other areas.

When Gulf Times contacted the company for a comment, a senior official said: “The matter has already been resolved through the embassy and let’s not complicate it any further.”