"Belt and Road becomes ball and chain for Chinese construction workers" 16 July 2022

[...] When the migrant workers from Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Hebei–China’s relatively poorer inland provinces–arrived in the country, however, they soon found themselves living in sheds without air conditioning in desert heat and facing a nightmare of withheld wages, mysterious extra fees, confiscated passports, and dismal food. Many are trapped in Algeria. [...]

Another grievance shared by the workers in Algeria who spoke to RFA in recent months was the failure to provide return airfare to China as promised.

After checking with the Chinese Embassy in Algiers, workers who were trying to go home were told that tickets to China ran about 22,000 yuan.

“The boss has told them that a flight ticket costs ¥42,000 yuan, and we have to pay our own ticket. He wanted us to pay by ourselves,” said Worker D.

“It seemed that the ticket was around ¥22,000 yuan, and he charged you more than ¥30,000, said Worker E. “’Immigration clearance fee,’ they said,” he added.

Worker D explained that because the company applied for business visas for the workers, when the workers return to China, they have to go through departure procedures at the Algerian immigration, police bureaus, and the courts. That is the so-called “immigration clearance fee.”

“When we were recruited, we applied and submitted our passports to the recruiting agents. The agents then handed our passports to the company, which applied for the visas for us,” said Worker D.

“Supposedly we should apply for workers’ visas, which cost more but allow you to stay for one or two years. But no, the company applied for the business visa, which only allows a stay of three months,” he added.

“I asked the company to give me a work visa, but when we came, we got business visas. Then we became illegal workers. Now we have to pay out of pocket to ‘clear immigration’ and for our flight tickets,” said Worker E.

The company also took away the workers’ passports, several of them said. [...]

RFA reached out to Sun Zongting, the general manager of Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co., Ltd., which had entered the Algerian market in 2013 to provide labor services, asking him about the workers’ complaints.

“There is no such thing. Where does this come from?” said Sun, who also denied the firm was stopping workers from returning to China.

“The reason why they didn’t return to China was because there were no flights available. With regards to payments, this is how it’s being done in Algeria. We do not owe the workers any wages.”

Pressed on the workers’ numerous complaints, Sun asked RFA: “Who said that? Give me phone numbers of those who said that. We can verify.”

“On the third or the fourth day after my arrival, I called the (Chinese) embassy. I told the embassy staff that I felt I have been conned, and that all my documents, my ID and my passports have been taken away. I asked the embassy to help me return to China,” said Worker D.

“The staff then ask me whether I’d signed a contract. I said I did when I was in Beijing. The person at the embassy told me: ‘If you are sick or if he does not pay you for your work, you can call me, but in your situation, now that you’ve come here, and you’ve signed a labor agreement…’

“The embassy staff said they did not dare to let me go,” said Worker D.

Worker D said he and his fellow workers see the embassy as working with the company.

“If you want to go to the consulate for help, for example, when a couple of people go, they’d ask you which company you work for and what your boss’s name is. Then they notify your boss. The boss then comes by car, and he sweet talks you back,” he said.

“This is what happens when two or three people go to the consulate for help. If there are more people that go, say more than a dozen of them or even two dozen, maybe the consulate will help us. Yet when there are only so few of us, it doesn’t work.” [...]

A staffer at China’s embassy in Algiers confirmed that disgruntled workers who spoke to RFA had indeed asked for help and that the mission had helped negotiate some return plane tickets to China.

“The Embassy has helped them negotiate with the company many times, but the Embassy has no managerial power over the company to enforce the agreements, so we cannot force the company to pay up,” the embassy staffer told RFA. [...]