03/08/2020
Set up a mechanism for ensuring migrant workers wages, labour rights activists say
(/)
28°C Kathmandu
Air Quality in Kathmandu: 57 (/airquality)
Mon, Aug 3, 2020
NATIONAL (/NATIONAL)
Set up a mechanism for ensuring migrant workers wages, labour rights activists say
A large number of workers have returned home unpaid with no guarantee of being paid.
Labour rights activists have demanded the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms that will address the issues of wage theft affecting migrant
workers. Post File Photo
(https://www.fonepay.com/fonepay-direct)
31
Chandan Kumar Mandal (/Author/Chandan-Kumar-Mandal)
Published at : August 2, 2020
Updated at : August 2, 2020 08:02
Kathmandu
As a large number of migrant workers have become victims of wage theft in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, migrant rights activists and
trade union representatives have demanded the setting up of transitional justice mechanisms to ensure workers are paid.
After Covid-19 rendered tens of thousands of Nepali migrant workers jobless, leaving them with no option but to return home, a majority of
them had to suffer wage theft (https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/07/04/jobless-and-without-pay-migrant-workers-are-returninghome-but-they-have-no-recourse-for-compensation)—denial of their hard-earned wages.
“We need a mechanism in place to ensure that workers’ wages are paid before they head back home,” said Laxman Basnet, general secretary of
the South Asian Regional Trade Union Council. “Their dues should be cleared in the country of destination. If they are not paid before their
departure, a grievance recording and hearing mechanism should exist at the local level too.”
According to worker rights activists, these workers have faced problems like ill-treatment, fear of infection
(https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/03/26/nepalis-in-qatar-live-in-overcrowded-and-squalid-conditions-even-during-pandemic)
and being stranded in foreign countries as they go unpaid when they board flights back home.
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2020/08/02/set-up-a-mechanism-for-ensuring-migrant-workers-wages-labour-rights-activists-say
1/6