Qatar to host football tournament for migrant workers

Qatar's football authorities league, in a break with a reluctance among Gulf states to give their largely expatriate majorities a sense of belonging, is organise the region's first tournament for foreign workers' teams.

The event, the foreign workers' cup, involving up to 24 teams formed by primarily by the Asian foreign workers who account for the bulk of Qatar's 1.5 million expatriates, is part of an effort to improve working and living conditions as well as a bid to fend off international trade union demands to meet global labor standards.

Meeting those standards would involve abolishing the widely critised sponsorship system common to various Gulf states that effectively gives employees full control of their employees; allowing the creation of independent trade unions; and adopting the principle of collective bargaining changes Qatar until now has shown no inclination to entertain.

However, the tournament fits into Qatar's sports strategy that aims to make sports part of the country's national identity and constitutes a key pillar of its cultural and public diplomacy as well as its global projection of soft power as part of its foreign, defence and security policy.

International trade unions have threatened Qatar with a boycot of its hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup if it failed to adopt international labour standards while human rights groups are documenting individual cases of workers that they consider to be violations and in some case are intervening to improve their conditions.

Nonetheless, the Qatar Government's tacit cooperation in the tournament along with recent moves to improve worker safety and security as well as living conditions constitute small but not insignificant steps forward.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) charges that Qatar's steps so far that also include drafting a charter of rights and a review of the much criticised recruitment system that often exposes workers to extortionary fees fall short of its promise to fully comply with international labour standards and are being implemented unilaterally rather than in consultation.

In February, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said she was "disappointed to hear that the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee has publicly asserted that it has 'sought out concrete suggestions on best practice'.

"The ITUC, representing the worlds working people, has not been consulted nor seen the draft charter. The UN, IMF, World Bank and the G20 all see fit to discuss labour issues with the ITUC, and consult with worker representatives in formal and informal dialogues. Yet Qatar's Supreme Committee appears to ignore these accepted protocols in their failure to discuss the workers charter with the ITUC."

While forward-looking Qataris acknowledge the need to improve workers' conditions as well as their country's unsustainable demographic dilemma, the breaking point at this point in ongoing discussions with the ITUC is likely to be the demands for independent unions and collective bargaining.

A recent survey by the Permanent Population Committee (PPC) concluded that more than 80% of Qataris worry about the country's dependence on foreign labor expected to increase with the import of more workers needed to complete $150 billion worth of infrastructure projects in advance of the FIFA World Cup.

The Government recently said that it would establish an independent committee to protect the rights of private sector workers that would help them in disputes with their employers and offer legal aid in cases of work-related injuries or deaths. It said the 50-member committee would be populated by employers and employees, seven of which would be appointed as board members. The committee's status would fall short of that of an independent union that could engage in collective bargaining.

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