About 300 Bangladeshi workers staged a peaceful sit-in protest yesterday at their accommodation camp in Mangaf over unpaid salaries...saying that they have not been paid for three to four months...Industrial action, including strikes and peaceful protests, by expatriate workers is illegal in Kuwait, and organizers and participants can face fines, jail time or deportation.

The workers also claim that a company manager, also a Bangladeshi, is taking money for visas without the company’s knowledge. The cleaners and porters claim that the manager forces all staff to pay an illegal fee of KD 600 for the renewal of their iqamas. He also makes them pay a fee of KD 200 when they ask to go on annual leave (KD 100 on leaving and KD 100 on joining back). Some of the workers claimed to have paid KD 2,650 to get visas from a ‘local visa trader’ in Bangladesh, but were again asked to pay more for the visas once they arrived in Kuwait.