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Trade unions from 36 countries have filed a complaint with the International Labour Organisation over the treatment of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.
The complaint calls for a “commission of inquiry” into labour rights in the country, one of the most powerful tools available to the ILO, a United Nations agency. The demand comes amid growing concern that not enough is being done to improve the conditions of workers as development begins to scale up before the Fifa World Cup, due to take place in the Gulf state in 2034.
Luc Triangle, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the “scale and severity” of the issues in Saudi Arabia demanded the strongest response. “This is a call for immediate action towards genuine, inclusive and collaborative reform,” he said. “We cannot tolerate another death of a migrant worker in Saudi Arabia. We cannot remain silent while migrant workers, especially construction and domestic workers continue to face fundamental rights violations. This has to stop now.”
The news comes on the day the ILO announced a new cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, signed on the sidelines of its key annual gathering, the International Labour Conference, held in Geneva this week. Under the initial two-year agreement Saudi Arabia is expected to begin to align its laws with international labour standards.
Human rights groups and trade unions have repeatedly warned that the World Cup, and other major projects, could be tarnished by abusive conditions endured by migrant workers in constructing the necessary infrastructure. These concerns include extortionate recruitment fees, non-payment of wages, false contracts, passport confiscation and exposure to extreme heat. Thousands of workers could be likely to die as construction ramps up, the rights group FairSquare claimed last month.
The number of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia has surged in recent years to more than 13 million, driven in part by a massive construction boom linked to the World Cup and so-called giga-projects.
The Guardian understands that Saudi Arabia’s agreement with the ILO includes proposals for new measures to support fair recruitment and make it easier for workers to change jobs, the introduction of a minimum wage and the inclusion of migrant workers on workers’ representative committees. Trade unions remain prohibited in the country.
The agreement also sets out commitments to improve the compensation system for workers who are injured or killed. In the longer term, it promises to strengthen protections for domestic workers, who have been excluded from key provisions of the labour law.
The planned reforms have failed to satisfy trade union delegates. Trade unions from the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and 13 African countries including Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal pushed through the complaint, despite fierce opposition from the Saudis.
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The complaint, which the Guardian has seen, lists dozens of cases of alleged human trafficking, forced labour, wage theft and physical and sexual abuse of migrant workers. “Africans go to Saudi Arabia looking for life but come back in coffins,” said Omar Osman, the general secretary of the federation of Somali trade unions and one of the signatories.
The complaint follows submissions made this year by the Building and Woodworkers International to the ILO over migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, and African trade unions raised with Fifa concerns over the treatment of workers.
Fifa says the human rights policy submitted as part of Saudi Arabia’s bid for the World Cup commits the country to embedding ILO standards as part of the 2034 process. In a letter to Human Rights Watch in April, the secretary general of Fifa, Mattias Grafström, wrote that “the work to implement the measures outlined in the bid strategy has started and is a priority for Fifa”. The trade union complaint is understood to acknowledge that this dialogue has begun.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in Saudi Arabia was approached for comment.
