Amazon employees in Saudi Arabia say firm has did not compensate many for labor abuses

Amazon, the world’s second-largest firm, has not but compensated dozens of migrant laborers compelled to pay hefty recruitment charges to safe work at its warehouses in Saudi Arabia, in response to new reporting by The Guardian.

The web retail large introduced in February that it had paid $1.9 million in reimbursements to greater than 700 present and former abroad employees. The funds got here after the recruitment charges and different unfair practices have been uncovered by Trafficking Inc., a joint investigation by ICIJ, The Guardian, NBC Information and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.

However 33 of 44 Amazon contract employees interviewed by The Guardian because the announcement stated they haven’t been reimbursed, regardless of believing they’re eligible to be.

A number of of these employees from Nepal, a few of whom nonetheless work in Amazon’s Saudi operations, instructed The Guardian they felt doubly mistreated by the corporate.

“In Saudi, many individuals requested questions on our recruitment charges. Amazon and different organizations additionally requested questions. However they haven’t reimbursed cash but,” Hari Prasad Mudbari stated. “Now I really feel like they performed a recreation towards me.”

The Nepali laborer reportedly paid roughly $1,500 in recruiting charges and different prices to land a job as a contract employee at an Amazon warehouse in Saudi Arabia. Different employees from Nepal shared comparable tales with The Guardian, saying they’d misplaced hope of getting their cash after being requested by Amazon staffers and others in regards to the charges, solely to return residence with out additional info.

“If Amazon needed to offer us the cash again, they might have accomplished it instantly,” stated Santosh Biswakarma, whose recruiting prices amounted to round $1,700, in response to The Guardian. “It’s a giant, wealthy firm. They might do it instantly.”

In a written assertion to The Guardian, Amazon stated it had organized reimbursements for an additional 151 employees since its announcement in February and that it was persevering with to work to determine and pay employees who qualify for compensation.

“These are complicated processes that take time, and we’re doing our greatest to expedite reimbursement,” an Amazon spokesperson stated within the assertion. “We’re additionally grateful to the employees who’ve participated all through this course of and shared their experiences.”

The spokesperson stated that the method had been difficult by many employees returning to Nepal and, in some circumstances, altering their cellphone numbers or residence addresses. The Guardian famous it had tracked down scores of employees via Fb and referrals from their co-workers.

‘Give the cash again’

As a part of Trafficking Inc., ICIJ and its media companions interviewed greater than 50 migrant laborers who stated they’d been duped by recruiting companies in Nepal after which suffered below poor working circumstances at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia. The employees stated they’d paid charges starting from roughly $830 to $2,300 to the companies for the roles — quantities far exceeding what’s allowed by Nepal’s authorities and working afoul of American and United Nations requirements.

A lot of the employees stated recruiters misled them in regards to the phrases of their employment by falsely promising they might work immediately for Amazon. As an alternative, they stated, they ended up employed by Saudi labor provide companies that positioned them in short-term contract jobs at Amazon warehouses, then siphoned away their wages.

In response to Trafficking Inc. and a separate investigation by the human rights group Amnesty Worldwide, Amazon stated it was “deeply involved” that a few of its contract employees in Saudi Arabia weren’t handled with “the dignity and respect they deserve.”

In line with The Guardian, the corporate labored with a human rights consulting group primarily based in London, Impactt, to rearrange the refunds for eligible employees from Nepal, India, Pakistan and different nations.

However present and former employees who acquired reimbursements instructed The Guardian they thought the formulation was damaged as a result of it ignored an essential issue: practically all the employees needed to borrow cash at exorbitant rates of interest — some as excessive as 55% yearly — to cowl the recruitment charges.

One employee refunded by Amazon stated he paid practically $2,570 to repay a $1,700 mortgage with a 36% rate of interest. And but, he acquired little greater than $1,600, in response to an Impactt doc he shared with The Guardian. “It’s not full compensation,” he stated.

The Amazon spokesperson instructed The Guardian that the corporate did take into consideration the curiosity employees paid on their loans when figuring out their reimbursements.

Momtaj Mansur, a Nepali employee who was featured in Trafficking Inc., was among the many employees reimbursed by Amazon, in response to The Guardian.

In 2023, Mansur instructed ICIJ he had “misplaced the whole lot” after touring from his residence in Kathmandu to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, for what he thought was a job working immediately at Amazon. As soon as there, he discovered a third-party agency employed him and had positioned him in a contract place at an Amazon warehouse. He was later fired with out warning, leaving him to languish in a squalid bunkhouse.

Mansur, now again residence in Nepal, instructed The Guardian that whereas he was happy to obtain the reimbursement, he had already suffered when moneylenders pressured his household to repay his loans. He stated that Amazon ought to “give the cash again to all different employees.”

“Wherever they work, whichever nation they’re from, no matter work they do, in the event that they’ve paid pointless charges to get a job, repay their cash,” he stated.

This story relies on reporting by Pramod Acharya and Michael Hudson for The Guardian. Learn the total story right here.