Mideast company fires North Koreans citing labor exploitation

A construction company in Qatar has fired 90 North Korean laborers — nearly half of its entire North Korean workforce — for breaching its labor regulations.

The decision by Qatar’s Construction Development Company (CDC) came after repeated violations of local laws and regulations by the workers and inhumane treatment of the workers by their supervisors, according to the minutes of a meeting between representatives of the company and North Korean officials that was exclusively obtained by the VOA Korean Service.

“The Korean supervisors responsible for the well-being of their workers have been continuously forcing them to work more than 12 hours a day. The food provided to their workforce is below standards. Site health and safety procedures are ignored regularly,” said one representative of the company, according to the document.

The company had initially sought to dismiss all the North Korean workers, but later reduced the number of workers to be fired at the request of North Korean officials.

CDC builds luxury hotels and government facilities in Qatar, with its annual revenue amounting to $300 million.

Currently, there are about 3,000 North Korean laborers in Qatar. It is estimated that some 50,000 North Koreans are working in 16 countries around the world.

[VoA]                                                                                Read more on the subject

This entry was posted in DPRK Government, Uncategorized by Grant Montgomery.