18/01/2021
“We Are All Going To Die Here” | Migrant-Rights.org
separate room in the labour camp in Tubli along with several more workers who have shown symptoms.
Though the workers have been allocated a separate toilet and room, they still share the same cooking
and dining space, exposing the rest to infection.
Abusive employer pushing workers to suicide
Orlando has a history of wage the and bad business practices. Migrant-Rights.Org previously reported
on the poor and crowded state of the Orlando workers’ camp and labour abuses, as well as the protests
employees staged two years ago.
In June 2018, the workers lodged a complaint at the Ministry of Labour with the assistance of social
workers and while some wages were retrieved, the company has since reverted to only paying one
month’s worth of wages every two to three months. The company has faced no repercussions, re ecting
Bahrain’s weak regulatory framework.
A er months of non-payment, conditions became so dire that one Indian worker, Gurpreet Singh, died
of suicide on 23 June 2018. The company did not respond to the suicide nor did it compensate Singh’s
family.
In the current case, many workers have not received wages since the beginning of this year and have
been unable to send money to their families back home. Around 30 workers have resigned and have
waited without income at their camp for as long as six months, while others continue to work without
pay.
Last month, the workers registered another complaint with the police and the Ministry of Labour,
following which the employer paid only one month's worth of salary.
An Indian worker told Migrant-Rights.Org, “I resigned in January and I am still waiting here, I want to go
back home but I want my four months due wages and settlement before I go.”
“The company has o ered us BD 50 (USD 132) and our passport and ight ticket on the condition that we
sign a paper to give up our claims for wages and settlement, the company has all our passports and we
cannot go to work elsewhere or go back home.”
Another Indian worker told MR, “I have been sitting in my room for six months waiting for my salary to
go back home, nobody is helping us, and now inside we have Corona also. We are all going to die here.”
“Since the outbreak last week, the daily cleaners stopped coming to our camp and garbage has been
piling up in the camp, the conditions are very bad here now.”
The Ministry of Labour is currently in negotiations with the company owners to resolve the case. But as
the company’s history and several other cases have shown in the past, settlements take a long time and
o en only result in a temporary resolution, if anything at all.
In uential businessman hindering redressal through his connections
Orlando Construction Company W.L.L. is owned by a high-pro le Indian businessman from Kerala
named Gopala Krishnan Kuttan Nair (GK Nair) who holds 49% share and his Bahraini partners Shaikh
Ahmed Bin Abdulaziz Al-Khalifa and Shaikha Juliana Abdulaziz Al-Khalifa hold 26% and 25%
respectively. However, GK Nair is the managing director of the company. Nair also runs other
construction companies like Al Qawareer Contracting Co. W.L.L and International Trading. W.L.L, where
he again owns 49% share. According to the workers, the companies past clients include Aluminium
Bahrain (ALBA) and Bahrain International Circuit.
https://www.migrant-rights.org/2020/06/we-are-all-going-to-die-here/
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