Revealed: Amazon linked to trafficking of workers in Saudi Arabia
Summary
Date Reported: 10 Oct 2023
Location: Saudi Arabia
Companies
Rove International - Recruiter , Al-Mutairi Support Services - Labour Supplier , Amazon.com - Other Value Chain EntityAffected
Total individuals affected: 49
Migrant & immigrant workers: ( 49 - Nepal , Retail , Gender not reported )Issues
Precarious/Unsuitable Living Conditions , Right to Privacy , Access to Water , Right to Food , Internet Access , Intimidation , Excessive production targets , Denial of leave , Reasonable Working Hours & Leisure Time , Surveillance , Illness , Occupational Health & Safety , Dismissal , Access to Non-Judicial Remedy , Access to Information , Racial, ethnicity, caste or origin discrimination , Restricted mobility , Contract Substitution , Recruitment Fees , Fair & Equal Wages , Human Trafficking , Mental Health , Freedom of ExpressionResponse
Response sought: Yes, by Journalists
External link to response: (Find out more)
Action taken: In a written reply to questions for this story, Amazon acknowledged that some workers at its Saudi facilities had been mistreated. “Providing safe, healthy and fair working conditions is a requirement of doing business with Amazon in every country where we operate, and we are deeply concerned that some of our contract workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia … were not treated with the standards we set forth, and the dignity and respect they deserve,” the statement said. “We appreciate their willingness to come forward and report their experience.” Amazon said it will make sure that workers who paid recruiting fees get their money back. The company added that it was “implementing stronger controls” to “ensure similar incidents do not occur and to raise overall standards for workers in the region”. This includes “providing enhanced trainings for our third-party vendors on labor rights standards with a specific focus on recruitment, wages, and deception”. Amazon also said in its statement that “our supply chain audit process and our own investigation surfaced violations of our standards” in Saudi Arabia, prompting it to take action to deal with the complaints. The company added that it has “a wide variety of ways that workers at our sites can report issues with how they are treated, including a confidential 24-hour hotline.” Amazon said that since it learned about the violations of its standards, it has worked closely with the Saudi firm “to align on a compliance plan, which they’ve agreed to, that addresses those violations and complies with our standards. This includes ensuring their employees are repaid for any unpaid wages or worker-paid recruitment fees, are provided clean and safe accommodations, and that the vendor is committed to ensuring ongoing protections for workers.” Rove International did not answer a detailed list of questions for this story. When a reporter visited its offices in Kathmandu on Sunday, a company official said: “We followed all legal procedures set by the government and these workers knew where and how they were going to work.” Al-Mutairi did not respond to requests for comment.
Source type: News outlet
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Momtaj Mansur is one of dozens of current and former workers who claim they were tricked and exploited by recruiting agencies in Nepal and labor supply firms in Saudi Arabia and then suffered under harsh conditions at Amazon’s warehouses.
Their accounts provide insight into how major American corporations profit, directly or indirectly, from employment practices that may amount to labor trafficking, which is defined as using force, coercion or fraud to induce someone to work or provide service.
Forty-eight of the 54 Nepali workers interviewed for this story say recruiters misled them about the terms of their employment, falsely promising they would work directly for Amazon. All 54 say they were required to pay recruiting fees – ranging from roughly $830 to $2,300 – that far exceed what’s allowed by Nepal’s government and run afoul of American and United Nations standards.
During their time in Saudi Arabia, these workers say, they were paid a fraction of what direct hires for Amazon’s Saudi warehouses earn, because labor supply firms were taking big cuts of what Amazon was paying for their labor.
Some workers say that after they’d been laid off from work at Amazon, their labor supply company sought to squeeze more money out of them, taking advantage of Saudi laws that give employers broad powers to control foreign workers’ freedom of movement. Mansur is one of 20 Nepalis interviewed for this story who say labor supply firms told workers they couldn’t go home to Nepal unless they paid exit fees that often equaled several months’ wages...
“Providing safe, healthy and fair working conditions is a requirement of doing business with Amazon in every country where we operate, and we are deeply concerned that some of our contract workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia … were not treated with the standards we set forth, and the dignity and respect they deserve,” [an Amazon] statement said. “We appreciate their willingness to come forward and report their experience.”
Amazon said it will make sure that workers who paid recruiting fees get their money back...
Ella Knight, a London-based labor rights researcher for Amnesty, says the group informed Amazon in June about these issues and followed up with fuller details of its findings in August. Knight says it’s likely that both Amnesty’s investigation and the news outlets’ separate investigation contributed to Amazon’s decision to publicly pledge to put stronger controls in place and make sure workers are repaid for their recruiting fees...