Qatar: 14 months after lauded labour reforms, workers say employers are "ignoring" new laws, refusing job change requests & withholding salaries
"The road to reform: have things improved for Qatar's World Cup migrant workers?" 22 Nov 2021
...Qatar announced sweeping labour reforms in 2019. This included ending kafala... Other reforms included the first minimum wage for migrant workers in the region and harsher penalties for companies that did not comply with the new labour laws...
the reforms were met with wide acclaim. Fifa called them groundbreaking. The UN said they marked a new era. An international trade union referred to them as a gamechanger. Even human rights groups, long critical of Qatar’s record on labour rights, gave them a cautious welcome.
Yet more than 40 migrant workers who talked to the Guardian in Qatar in September and October this year say that for them, nothing much has changed...
the Guardian met only one worker – a young man from Kenya – who had managed to leave his job...
[Workers] allege that their companies are simply ignoring the new laws. Some say their bosses threaten to impose fines or hold back wages if they try to change jobs, and that they are living so close to destitution this could be catastrophic.
Others workers say that employers refuse to sign resignation letters or to issue “no-objection certificates”, seemingly unaware that neither are required under the reformed labour code.
[Refers to Al Jaber Engineering.]