Bangladesh trade union joins FIFA Qatar complaint

Campaigners stage a protest in Zurich against working conditions in Qatar Keystone

A Bangladeshi trade union has added its weight to a legal complaint against FIFA, holding world football’s governing body accountable for unfair labour conditions in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) initially lodged the complaint at the Zurich Commercial Court earlier this year. It accuses Zurich-based FIFA of breaking global labour standards by awarding the competition to a country that operates the “kafala” employment system.

This requires all foreign workers in Qatar, and other Gulf countries, to be sponsored by a local employer. The employer reserves the right to withdraw the sponsorship at any time, forcing the worker to leave the country.

The employer can also refuse to allow migrant workers to leave by denying them the permission needed for an exit visa. The kafala system has been criticised as a means of stifling worker grievances and forcing them to accept working conditions that fall below international standards.

Individual complains

While the complaint has been lodged on behalf of all migrant workers, a Bangladeshi worker, Nadim Shariful Alam, will also be a separate plaintiff in the case against FIFA. Alam paid a Bangladeshi recruitment agency around $4,400 (CHF4,310) to work for a Qatari company involved in building infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.

He was engaged in August 2014 and his passport was confiscated. It was only returned to him after he was fired in January 2016. Alam is claiming CHF5,310.50 in damages as well as compensation of CHF5,000 plus 5% interest since 23 August 2014.

“As the umbrella body of trade unions, we feel that his right as a human being has been denied and we strongly raised our voice against this violation of rights,” Repon Chowdhury, secretary general of the Bangladesh Free Trade Union Congress, told Reuters on Friday.

Pioneering case

Speaking to Switzerland’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper on Friday, Zurich lawyer David Husmann, who is jointly handling the case, accused FIFA of knowing about working conditions in Qatar all along. “Should a Swiss association, which publicly calls for human rights to be respected, also apply those standards? We think so.”

Prominent Swiss lawyer Gregor Geisser told the newspaper that this promises to be a “pioneering” case in Switzerland. “It is not as if FIFA is a group whose subsidiaries build stadiums in Qatar,” he said. “But as the owner of the World Cup, FIFA has strong decision-making and directional powers.”

The outcome of the case will “depend a lot on the temperament of the judges”, he added.

Protests against Qatar

The British Guardian newspaperExternal link was among the first publications to expose unfair and dangerous working conditions in Qatar as the country builds up for the 2022 World Cup. In 2013 it printed a report citing dozens of deaths among migrant workers and predicted a toll of 4,000 if the death toll continued unchecked.

Amnesty InternationalExternal link has called on World Cup sponsors to withdraw their funding unless the situation is rectified.

FIFA itself has acknowledged making a mistake by awarding the World Cup to Qatar without looking closer into the country’s labour conditions.

This is not the first time the Dutch Trade Union has tried hold to FIFA to account in Switzerland. In May 2015, FNV along with Swiss-based Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) submitted a written complaint against FIFA for human rights violations of migrant workers to the Swiss National Contact Point of the OECD. This body serves as mediator between aggrieved groups and Swiss-based organisations and companies.