We are pleased to announce the publication of our sixth annual report in our role as External Monitor to the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy in Qatar (the SC). The report is based on assessments of 16 contractors and interviews with 573 workers and looks at how well Construction and Auxiliary Services contractors have succeeded in complying with the SC’s Worker Welfare Standards, making comparisons with previous years. For the first time, the report also looks at the Hospitality sector, which is increasingly the focus of the SC’s activities as the Tournament draws near.
Broadly, this year’s results for the Construction and Auxiliary Services contractors are comparable with previous years with good performance in personal documents, working conditions and worker representation. The Hospitality Sector scores, in general, more highly than construction, in particular in relation to due diligence, contracts and administration and end-of-service procedures. Overall, non-compliances per contractor increased slightly this year by 5%. Nevertheless, the overall severity of non-compliances raised has decreased, with a reduction in both critical and major non-compliances per contractor.
Key challenges remain: Due diligence, as well as contracts and administration, are low-scoring topic areas in the Construction and Auxiliary Services sector. In the Hospitality Sector, there were a few instances observed of discrimination based on gender and nationality. For both sectors, ethical recruitment, working hours, rest and leave, grievance mechanisms and end-of-service procedures are areas needing improvement. In particular, our work this year found a continued prevalence of proxy ‘No-Objection Certificates’ (NOCs) in the form of resignation acceptance letters, being required for new joiners and provided to leaving employees, despite the change in the law in 2020, which removed this requirement.
The SC’s legacy in driving recruitment fee repayment should not be underestimated. Many of the principles underlying SC’s Universal Recruitment Reimbursement Scheme (SCURS) have been adopted and refined by other sectors and in other geographies. To date, the SC calculates a total reimbursement by contractors of up to QAR 103.95 million (equivalent to USD 28.4 million) paid to 31,220 SC workers and 18,066 non- SC workers over 36 months. Based on the SC’s audits and inspections, the SC reports that as of December 2021, QAR 83.20 million (USD 21.96 million) of the total to be reimbursed had already been paid. At present, the SC is working with hospitality contractors to promote the repayment of recruitment fees.
As the Tournament draws near, we have broadened the scope of our recommendations beyond the FIFA World Cup 2022 timeline to ensure the legacy of the SC’s valuable work. Our recommendations include recommendations for the SC in the medium term, to the State of Qatar, and to contractors who provide services to the SC and FIFA in the long term.
Ensuring legacy
- Focus SC efforts to engage with stakeholders, working groups and organising committees of other sporting events to share learnings from the successes of the WWS – and promote these to the Ministry of Labour (MoL)
- Support the State of Qatar to adopt a strengthened approach to monitoring, grievance management, compliance and enforcement, learning from the SC’s comprehensive due diligence programme and multi-tiered approach
- Increase standards across Qatar to mirror the WWS
Reinforcing ethical recruitment
- Focus SC efforts to continue to enforce and expand the ethical recruitment provision of the SC WWS to ensure in-depth ethical recruitment due diligence, to reduce and ultimately prevent the payment of recruitment fees
- Support the State of Qatar to expand due diligence requirements over international recruitment to reduce the risk of future fee payments by migrant workers and adopt the SCURS across all sectors in Qatar
Providing sustainable solutions to recurring problems
- Continue to focus efforts on training, awareness building, and dialogue sessions with contractors to promote a cultural shift across the key areas mentioned within this report
- Support contractors to gather data to understand the business impacts of better compliance and higher worker satisfaction in terms of productivity and efficiency
- Support the State of Qatar to build the capacity of its Ministry to implement, monitor and regulate good labour practices across all sectors
- Support FIFA and other sports governing bodies to apply and build on the SC’s comprehensive workers’ welfare and labour rights model with Local Organising Committees and other host nations
To read more about our findings and recommendations, please click below to read the full report.
