Qatar launches changes to worker payment

Wage Protection System will ensure that salaries are paid out on time.

Migrant workers at a construction site in Doha’s southern suburbs. Marwan Naamani / AFP / May 4, 2015

Doha // Qatar has launched one of its most significant labour reforms, which are designed to guarantee migrant workers’ wages.

The Wage Protection System (WPS) was created to ensure that migrant labourers, many working on 2022 World Cup-related projects, would receive their pay on time.

Under the new system, workers would be paid either twice a month or monthly, and the wages electronically transferred directly to their bank accounts.

Failure to pay salaries on time, especially for blue-collar workers, has been one of the biggest complaints voiced by rights groups against companies in Qatar.

An academic study published in 2013, Portrait of low-income migrants in contemporary Qatar, found that one-fifth of migrant workers were “sometimes, rarely or never” paid on time.

The six-month grace period expired yesterday for businesses to be prepared to make electronic payments. Companies that fail to pay staff on time could be fined up to 6,000 Qatari riyals (Dh6,000), be banned from recruiting new staff – and its executives could be sent to jail.

Inspection teams have been made ready to monitor the new system and identify any companies not complying with the regulations.

The WPS is being overseen by the labour ministry, which has previously pointed to its introduction as proof of Qatar’s commitment to labour reform.

In May, the ministry cited the WPS as an example of the “significant changes” being introduced in response to furious criticism of its labour practices since the decision to allow Qatar to host football’s biggest tournament.

Amnesty International, which has criticised Qatar for its “slow” pace of reform, said the introduction of the WPS was welcome. “It’s a positive step in principle,” said Amnesty’s Gulf migrant rights researcher, Mustafa Qadri. Amnesty still has concerns about what will happen following the deadline today.

Doha has said it backs “effective and sustainable change” and said the WPS, like Qatar’s pledge to improve accommodation for 250,000 workers, demonstrated a commitment to this end.

But reform of the WPS only added to the calls for change elsewhere, specifically the biggest reform of all, scrapping of the controversial “kafala” system, which limits the movement of foreign workers.

Qatar has pledged by the end of this year to abolish the system under which employers retained passports of workers, who are not allowed to change jobs.

* Agence France-Presse