1. List Possible Resources

• Qatar Sucks
• Qatari Government
• Newspapers
• United States Government

 

2. Evaluate Resources

• Qatar Sucks seems to have accurate information but may not be authentic.
•  The Qatari Government might try to cover things up to make Qatar look better.
• Newspapers are generally truthful.
• the United States Government is sure to have accurate information.

 

3. Analyze their authenticity

•  Qatar Sucks seems to have a cited source for each story.
• the Qatari Government might be lying.
• Newspapers are usually reliable.
• the United States Government usually has authentic information.
   

4. Choose the top sources

1.  Qatar Sucks
2. The United States Govenment

 

5. Organize information

 

• Labor foreman, salary 800 Riyals (approx $220), working hours 5am to 5pm.
• Builder, salary 700 Riyals (approx $190), working hours 6am to 6pm. No off day.
• Builder, salary 700 Riyals, working hours 6am to 4-5pm.
• Road builder, salary 500 Riyals (approx $137), 11 working hours a day. No off day.
• Road building foreman, salary 800 Riyals (approx $220) includes 4 overtime hours/day at 4 Riyals/hour. 2 off days a month.
   
  Section 6 Worker Rights

   

a. The Right of Association

 

The 2004 labor law and subsequent regulations provide for the right of workers' association for citizens over 18 years of age in private enterprises with more than 100 citizen workers. Noncitizens were not eligible to form worker committees. Foreign workers ­can only be members of joint labor-management committees. Those working in the government sector are prohibited from joining a union. Further, the law and regulations permit only a single national trade union composed various worker committees at individual firms and forbid affiliation with groups outside the country.

 

b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

 

No labor unions existed during the year. Under the labor law, workers are granted the right to bargain collectively and to sign joint agreements, i.e., agreements reached between employer and worker regarding a work-related issue. The right was circumscribed by the government's control over the rules and procedures of the bargaining and agreement processes. Collective bargaining was not freely practiced, and there were no workers under collective bargaining contracts. The law also grants workers the right to strike, but the restrictive conditions imposed by the statute make the likelihood of a strike extremely remote. Nevertheless, expatriate workers staged at least seven strikes during the year to seek redress and improvement in their work situation from employers.

 

Government employees, domestic servants, and those in the public utility, health, and security services are prohibited from striking. However, legally they can seek permission to hold a public gathering. Private employers set wages unilaterally without government involvement. Local courts handled disputes between workers and employers; however, foreign workers avoided drawing attention to problems with their employers for fear of repatriation. According to resident embassies of expatriate workers and some individual migrant workers, the Labor Department was widely perceived to be objective within its narrow mandate when dealing with the nonpayment of wages. The Labor Department claimed that it resolved 80 percent of worker complaints amicably with a very small percentage referred to the labor courts for judgment.

 

A new secretariat for labor relations was established during the year charged with collective bargaining and overseeinglabor relations. The Labor Inspection Section was restructured and staffed with sufficient numbers of trained inspectors who were provided with the power of law enforcement. A limited number of labor camps were inspected randomly and when found to be below minimum standards, the operators received a warning. Upon second inspections all camp violations were correctly promptly for fear of repercussions under the law. Statistics on the number of inspections are not available, but foreign labor attachés reported that most labor camps in the country remained below minimum standards.

 

There were no export processing zones.

 

c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

 

The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children; however, foreign workers in some cases were employed under circumstances that constituted forced labor (see section 5). More than three-quarters of the workforce were foreign workers who, entirely dependent on their employer for residency rights, were vulnerable to abuse. For example, employers must give consent before exit permits are issued to any foreign employee seeking to leave the country. Some employers temporarily withheld this consent to force foreign employees to work for longer periods than they wished. Unskilled workers and domestic servants were particularly vulnerable to nonpayment or late payment of wages. During the year compulsory labor by children occurred (see section 6.d.).

 

d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment

 

The law prohibits forced and compulsory labor by children, and the government generally enforced this prohibition with respect to citizen children; however, some child labor occurred. The Labor Law stipulates the minimum age for employment as 16 years.

 

The labor law provides that minors between the ages of 16 and 18 can be employed with parental or guardian permission, and some children worked in small, family-owned businesses such as small markets or as office clerks. Minors may not work more than six hours a day or more than 36 hours a week. Employers must provide the Labor Department with the names and occupations of their minor employees and obtain permission from the Ministry of Education to hire a minor. The Labor Department may prohibit the employment of minors in jobs that are judged dangerous to the health, safety, or morals of minors.

 

e. Acceptable Conditions of Work

 

Although the labor law provides the emir with authority to set a minimum wage, he did not do so. The average wage of noncitizen workers did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. The law prescribes a 48-hour workweek with a 24-hour rest period, although most government offices followed a 36-hour workweek. Employees who worked more than 48 hours per week or 36 hours per week during the holy month of Ramadan were entitled to overtime pay. Government offices and major private sector companies adhered to this law; however, it was not observed with respect to unskilled laborers and domestic and personal employees, the majority of whom were foreigners. Many such workers frequently worked seven days per week, and more than 12 hours per day with few or no holidays, no overtime pay, and no effective way to redress grievances.

 

Some employers mistreated foreign domestic servants, predominantly those from South Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Some foreign embassies provided temporary shelter for 48 hours to their nationals who left their employers as a result of abuse or disputes before transferring the case to local government officials. According to their embassies, the majority of cases were resolved within 48 hours. Those not resolved within 48 hours were transferred to the Criminal Evidence and Investigation Department of the MOI for a maximum of seven days. Cases not resolved within seven days were transferred to the labor court, a special section of the first instance civil court. During the year the embassies of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka received a combined total of more than 3,400 complaints from male and female workers; more than 900 from housemaids alleging mistreatment by their employers. The Nepalese Embassy reported that they received 14 to 20 complaints per day. Complaints included sexual harassment, delayed and nonpayment of salaries, forced labor, contract switching, holding of passports, poor accommodation, nonrepatriation, physical torture or torment, overwork, imprisonment, and maltreatment. Abused domestic servants usually did not press charges for fear of losing their jobs. According to Indonesian officials, 30 to 50 Indonesian housemaids fled from their sponsors each month during the year.

 

The government has enacted regulations regarding worker safety, but enforcement, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy and Industry, the Ministry of Health, and the Labor Department, was lax due to insufficient training and lack of personnel. Diplomatic representatives visited labor camps and found the majority of unskilled foreign laborers living in cramped, dirty, and hazardous conditions, often without running water or electricity. Inspectionsby labor inspectors of labor camps became more numerous and public during the year resulting in mandatory compliance of minimum standards by camp managers and owners at a limited number of camps that were either chosen randomly for inspection or were inspected as a result of complaints of violations. According to foreign labor attachés, most camps remained below minimum standards.

 

On April 12, two foreign construction workers reportedly died from exposure to toxic gases at a labor camp at Ras Laffan. An estimated 1,000 workers violently protested their deaths, and the organizers were detained and deported. Because the incident was considered a state security matter involving an oil or gas facility, officials from the NHRC were prevented by security authorities from inspecting the camp after the incident to help ensure respect for workers' health and safety. For this reason compliance with standards was not documented.

 

According to the Nepalese Embassy, 141 of their approximately 179,000 nationals died in the country during the year, 45 percent of whom reportedly died of heart attacks. Another 25 percent died in traffic accidents, while 17 percent died in work-related accidents. Suicide claimed six percent, while the remaining died of other non-specified causes.

 

The Department of Public Safety oversaw safety training and conditions, and the state-run petroleum company had its own safety standards and procedures. The regulations listed partial and permanent disabilities for which compensation may be awarded, some connected with handling chemicals and petroleum products or construction injuries. The law does not specifically set rates of payment and compensation. The government provided free medical treatment to workers who suffered work-related sickness or injuries.

 

Foreign workers may enter the country on a visitor's visa, but a sponsor is needed to convert a visitor's visa to a work visa, and the worker must have a sponsor's permission to depart the country. The government also fined individual sponsors and employers who severely violated residence and sponsorship laws by prohibiting them from importing labor until they rectified the situation. Employers mistreated some foreign domestic servants. Such mistreatment generally involved the nonpayment or late payment of wages; in some cases, it involved rape and physical abuse.

 

The law does not provide workers the specific right to remove themselves from hazardous work conditions, and workers often hesitated to do so for fear of dismissal. The law provides any worker with the right to seek legal relief from onerous work conditions; however, pursuing such relief risked repatriation, and there were no reports of workers seeking such relief during the year.

 

6. Assemble information to use in a Song

 

 

7. Compose the Song

 

 

8. Evaluate the Song