First official strike by foreign workers in Qatar

Some 600 foreign workers working in the field of construction in Qatar observed a work strike in the first official workers strike since the beginning of enforcement of the new Qatari constitution in June 2004 which approved the right to strike.

The striking workers belong to four private Qatari companies and one company which takes the United Arab Emirates UAE as headquarters. One official at "al-Ajaj" engineering company, one of the companies whose workers observed the strike, said that he expects this problem will be solved this year.

The official in charge of workers affairs at the Indian embassy to Doha, R. Shambra, said on Sunday that 600 foreign workers, half of them are Indians joined a work strike since days, because their salaries are not paid and their living conditions are deteriorated."

Shambra explained "there are other 300 Indian workers and others from Sri Lanka, Nepal, and some Egyptians who observed a work strike because they were not paid their salaries for a period of two to six months by one of the contracting companies." She indicated that those workers "complained against living under bad conditions, like placing 12 persons in one room, in addition to malnutrition and the absence of medical care, besides the company recruiting them did nothing to settle their residency status."