22/04/2021 Salary Abuses Facing Migrant Workers Ahead of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 | HRW software alerts them. The checkers and blockers decide how severe an alert is, and how the DONATE NOW Summary employer should be penalized, if at all. There are several reasons an alert could be issued – these include a payment of below QR50, a payment delayed by more than seven days after due date, a discrepancy between the number of employees in a company and the number of employees paid that month, unpaid overtime where overtime hours are registered but not paid, and excessive deductions of more than 50 per cent of gross salary.[60] However, the current iteration of the WPS is riddled with loopholes that companies and employers use to exploit migrant workers. The above-mentioned ILO report states that wagerelated grievances make up most of the complaints received by the Labor Relations Department, the Labour Dispute Settlement Committees, and the labor ministry. The report states that “wage abuses are still far too common” and evidence for this can be seen in the high rate of non-compliance with the Wage Protection System.[61] The three biggest reasons that the WPS is unable to protect workers include defective formatting of the Salary Information Files, weak triggers for the alert system, and the lack of a requirement for employers to issue physical pay slips to migrant workers. Firstly, the Salary Information File does not include the text or terms of workers’ contracts. This undermines the entire purpose of the written contract, the terms upon which migrant workers made the decision to leave their homes and families and work in Qatar. The lack of contractual details renders the WPS incapable of raising flags when employers are violating promises laid down in contracts. Moreover, Salary Information Files do not contain a separate section for overtime payments, which are instead bundled into the ‘Extra Income’ category. An ‘Unpaid Overtime’ alert is only issued when overtime hours are reported, and no payment is identified alongside. This means that an employer can escape investigation by paying a meager, inaccurate amount of overtime payment. Secondly, the WPS only issues an alert for underpayment when the worker receives less than QR50 ($14) as their monthly wage, even though the temporary minimum wage stands at QR750 ($206) per month.[62] This limitation also allows employers to arbitrarily deduct exorbitant amounts from salaries without needing to offer an explanation. Thirdly, neither the WPS nor employers offer physical pay slips to workers. Without pay slips that detail basic wages, food allowances, transport costs, bonuses, backpay, deductions, overtime payments, overtime hours, end of service payments and such, the employer can obfuscate the sum they owe to workers. This leaves migrant workers with little proof of how and when they were denied pay or benefits. https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/08/24/how-can-we-work-without-wages/salary-abuses-facing-migrant-workers-ahead-qatars 21/62