<
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/10/amazon-trafficking-links-claims-saudi-arabia-workers-abuses>
"Momtaj Mansur wanted to go home to his mom and his brother and the pastures of
Nepal’s southern plains. He felt like a prisoner, he says, in a roach-infested
bunkhouse in Saudi Arabia, out of work, hungry and deep in debt.
The 23-year-old had come to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in 2021 to work for one
of the world’s biggest companies: Amazon.
Instead of his dream job, he says, he found low pay and misery. Amazon managers
berated him, he says, for being too slow as he hustled across a vast two-story
warehouse, grabbing iPhones and other items ordered by customers across the
Arabian peninsula.
Then in May 2022, he says, he and many of his Nepali co-workers were abruptly
let go from their jobs at the Amazon warehouse. They were 2,400 miles from home
with no wages and little food.
Mansur says he pleaded with the Saudi labor supply company that held their
employment contracts and had placed them in what amounted to temporary
positions at Amazon: if there was no more work, let them return to Nepal.
The Saudi firm, he says, demanded he make a terrible choice. He could stay in a
place that, for him, was “like a hell”. Or he could push his family back in
Nepal deeper into destitution by paying a $1,300 exit fee, a penalty for
leaving before his contract was done.
“I told them: either kill us or send us home, but don’t give us so much pain,”
he says.
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."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
