RMT Supports Plight Of Migrant Workers In Qatar

Rmt General Secretary Bob Crow and London transport region Executive Council member Janine Booth have signed a letter expressing solidarity with Nepali and other migrant workers in Qatar. We invite other RMT members to put their name to the letter. If you wish to do so, let us know here.

The letter
We are writing to express our solidarity with Nepali and other migrant workers in Qatar.

As the Guardian has extensively documented, Qatar is severely abusing the rights of its overwhelmingly migrant workforce, in many cases literally working people to death. Abuses of Nepali and other migrant workers in Qatar include the use of forced labour, not paying workers for months, confiscating passports and refusing to issue ID cards, refusing to allow people to go home, putting workers ten or more to a filthy room with few or no facilities, providing grossly inadequate food and even denying free water in the desert heat. It is no wonder that hundreds have already died.

The Anti-Slavery International campaign has rightly said that these things “go beyond forced labour to slavery”.

Labour movement, student movement and Nepali community activists will be protesting outside the Qatari embassy in London on 12 October. We demand an end to these abuses and for Nepali and international trade unions to be allowed into Qatar to verify changes and inform workers of their rights.