Tension prevails at a labour camp in Kuwait after two supervisors of a cleaning company were beaten up by a large number of striking Bangladeshi workers on Tuesday allegedly over unpaid wages, reports Arab Times yesterday.
The two injured staffs -- an Egyptian and a Bangladeshi -- have been admitted to the Farwaniya Hospital, while police arrested three striking workers connection with the strike in Jleeb Al-Shyoukh at around 12:30pm.
This is the latest incident of a series of strikes by Asian workers, mainly Bangladeshis, in protest against mistreatment by supervisors, non-payment and low wages in last one month.
At least 1129 Bangladeshi workers were deported for their alleged participation in the strikes, but many deported workers upon their arrival said they did not participate in the strikes but were arrested, tortured and deported.
“The trouble began when the Egyptian supervisor threatened some workers with dire consequences if they failed to return to work. This led to heated exchanges and the workers then attacked the duo,” the newspaper reported quoting an anonymous source as saying.
No worker, however, was reported to be hurt in the incident as police rushed to the camp and brought the situation under control.
Confirming the incident, an official of Bangladesh embassy in Kuwait said the company had assured the embassy of clearing all the dues of its workers yesterday and that a senior official of Kuwait's social affairs and labour ministry visited the camp and listened to workers' grievances.
The official further said he had ordered the company to shift the workers to another camp as the living condition there was precarious and claimed that the arrestees are innocent.
The workers said they would not go back to work unless the three were released and demanded sacking of unscrupulous workers, he added.
Quoting a source, Arab Times said the supervisors in question were demanding bribe to place them at certain establishments.
The official said, “Good placements were being auctioned off by the supervisors and the company was apathetic in tackling workers' problems… It was not a sudden development, the supervisors were working against the interests of the workers for long and were warned several times by the workers.”
He, however, dismissed newspaper reports that workers of some companies had gone on strike and that no Bangladeshi workers are on strike and that the embassy has adopted a “Wait and Watch” policy.
Meanwhile, Kuwait's Social Affairs and Labour Minister Bader Al-Duwailah Al-Duwailah said they installed a hotline number 128, which started operating on Tuesday, to receive complaints on human trafficking companies that do not pay regular salaries or pay low wage than the fixed KD 40 a month for the cleaners.