3,100 migrant workers lost USD 25m in wage theft during COVID-19

Rejimon Kuttappan

MANILA / DHAKA / DELHI / JAKARTA: Around USD 25.2 million was stolen from some 3,100 Asian migrant workers’ wages and dues during the COVID-19, a report released by Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) reveals.

MFA is a regional network of non-government organizations (NGOs), associations and trade unions of migrant workers and individual advocates in Asia who are committed to protecting the rights of migrant workers.

The latest wage theft report titled Crying Out For Justice based on the cases collected between June and December in 2021 through its Justice for Wage Theft (JFWT) campaign, and separately by the MFA, says that “one migrant worker would have lost wages at a minimum average of USD 7,217 for 14 months.”

Wage theft is an umbrella term for a variety of wage and benefit-related violations committed against migrant workers by employers and recruiting agencies.

Since 2020 June, the MFA and its partners have been running the JFWT campaign and have released two wage theft reports based on cases collected from the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Based on the 2,072 cases collected through the JFWT campaign between June and Dec 2021, the report reveals that 745 Indian migrant workers reported a loss of USD 16.3 million as wages and dues during the pandemic.

The report also adds that 408 Indonesians reported USD 1.1 million as wages lost and 441 Nepali migrants suffered wage theft to the tune of USD 637,000.

Meanwhile, 379 Bangladeshi workers lost a little more than USD 672,000, and 99 Filipino migrants reported losing USD 420,000 by wage theft.

And from the cases submitted by MFA partners (not on the JWT platform), the wages lost by 1,034 workers is between USD 3.2 million to USD 6.0 million.

Unreported and Invisible

William Gois, the Regional Coordinator of MFA, says that “it is notable that these are just a fraction of the actual numbers of migrant workers that suffer wage theft across the globe compared to actual numbers that go unreported and are invisible due to lack of documentation.”

“Sector-wise and even gender-wise we may see under-representation in the data. The data we collected was only possible due to concerted efforts of our members and partners,” he added.

The construction sector continued to account for the largest proportion of cases of wage theft among migrant workers at 1322 cases in total, like in the past two reports. However, the cases increased from 657 during the reporting period of the previous report.

This is followed by 328 cases in domestic work (where female migrants were disproportionately affected), the manufacturing sector at 260 cases, the hospitality sector at 163 cases, office staff at 147 cases, and the fishing sector at 108 cases.

Other sectors include transportation (75), sanitation (70), retail (65), ‘other’ occupations (30) and tradespersons (14), medical, agricultural, mining, plantation workers, etc.

Analysing the cases, the MFA says that employers are equally responsible in their own self-regulation and responsible business bodies and the states need to consider measures in this regard.

“States require more intensive efforts to create a sense of accountability among its private sector employers regarding wage theft, arbitrary dismissal, and coercive tactics,” the MFA says adding that the casework has also clearly displayed that the excessive dependence upon temporary contractual labour has only increased vulnerabilities for countries of origin during periods of crises.

Issues of constant wage theft and non-payment of compensation and dues have been consistently highlighted by civil society as a systemic problem within labour migration. However, the COVID-19 pandemic had aggravated its occurrence and made it visible.

And the pandemic further exposed underlying gaps in labour migration (particularly among temporary and contractual migrant workers) and the flawed foundations upon which such migration programs have been established.

The previous Justice for Wage Theft reports sought to explain and observe the various dimensions of wage theft and its root causes.

(Rejimon Kuttappan is an independent journalist and author of Undocumented: Stories of Indian Migrants in the Arab Gulf. Penguin 2021)