Saudi Arabia and major trade unions have agreed on a framework to advance labour rights in the Arab kingdom, Josimar understands. In return, official complaints against Saudi Arabia at the ILO will be dropped – a repeat of Qatar’s playbook in the buildup to the 2022 World Cup.
By Sam Kunti
On Monday, the International Labour Organization (ILO) will stage elections for a new director general. Later that day, a discussion on Saudi Arabia and its labour rights record is on the agenda.
Gilbert Houngbo, the ILO’s current director general and former PM of Togo, praised relations with Saudi Arabia last year even as the ILO was investigating the 2034 World Cup host. The Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI), which represents 12 million members in 117 countries, had accused Saudi Arabia of “severe human rights abuses and wage theft” within the kafala system that defines labour rules for migrant workers in the kingdom.
That 2024 complaint was followed by a second, joint complaint a year later by both BWI and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing more than 100 million workers, under article 26 of the ILO Constitution, detailing systemic abuse, including passport confiscation, debt bondage and 18-20 hour workdays, primarily concerning African workers employed in the construction and domestic sectors. It called for a commission of inquiry, the highest investigative mechanism in the ILO for when member states are accused of committing persistent and serious violations of a ratified ILO Convention. Saudi Arabia denied violating ILO conventions.
Multiple sources have confirmed to Josimar that those complaints will be dropped following an agreement between the unions and Saudi Arabia to adopt a five-year framework that will address among others occupational health and safety, worker rights eduction, wage protection, wage theft, and the kafala system, which remains prevalent in Saudi Arabia. The framework provides for joint inspections of labour conditions on the ground. The ILO, a UN body, will serve as facilitator in its role as a tripartite agency, bringing together governments, employers, and workers to establish labour standards, policy, and programs for decent work worldwide.
Previously, the unions had shown a degree of combativeness. As reported by Josimar, ITUC Africa accused Saudi Arabia of intimidating the unions and its members.
Earlier this year, when the article 26 complaint against Saudi Arabia was deferred, BWI’s position held that dialogue should not be a substitute for the complaint process. At the time, ITUC, the global branch, led the outreach to Saudi Arabia, offering to negotiate properly if the Arab kingdom were to commit to labour reforms.
However, by dropping the complaints in exchange for an agreement, the unions may have ceded their greatest leverage over Saudi Arabia. The development is a repeat of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
Qatar 2.0?
The Saudi only needed to look across the border to understand how to navigate the tripartite system of trade unions, member states and the ILO. Before FIFA awarded the World Cup to Qatar in 2010, the Gulf nation had faced little scrutiny over its labour record, including the kafala system.
Global focus on its World Cup bid however shifted from climate concerns and corruption allegations to the systemic exploitation of migrant workers. The crisis escalated when BWI and ITUC lodged a formal complaint in 2014 with the ILO alleging “widespread and systematic violations” of labour standards.
Three years later, Qatar promised comprehensive reforms, which led to the complaints being dropped. The ILO’s role became deeply controversial, first aligning with Qatar before regularly rolling out government statistics to champion apparent progress. The ILO accepted $25 million in funding from Qatar for its Doha-based office. The New York Times also reported that Qatar pressed the ILO to not investigate labour abuses. The ILO denied this.
Qatar’s labour reforms were largely cosmetic, as years of reporting by Josimar has demonstrated. The kafala system was dismantled on paper, but enforcement failed. Today, migrant workers in Qatar still face rampant wage theft, illegal recruitment fees, passport confiscation, unsafe housing, and zero legal representations. Trade unions and strikes remain strictly banned.
Saudi Arabia does not want the global outrage that Qatar faced from media and human rights groups over the abuse of migrant workers, but is now repeating Qatar’s playbook ahead of the 2034 World Cup.
To host the 2034 tournament, Saudi Arabia envisioned a series of megaprojects, but regional conflicts and economic pressures have forced plans to be scaled back, reportedly reducing the planned number of venues from fifteen to ten. Meanwhile, its flagship project NEOM, featuring a 170 km sci-fi linear city and a World Cup stadium built 350 meters above the ground, has effectively reached the end of the line.
Still, the 2034 World Cup and the infrastructure behind it risk being built by millions of migrant workers, whose rights will only exist on paper.
