Simple Minds called to campaign for world cup workers in Qatar

Date: Friday 18 December 2015 UNISON, Scotland’s biggest trade union, has written to the Scottish band Simple Minds asking they speak out for migrant workers rights in Qatar. UNISON supports the TUC Fair Play for Qatar campaign which is highlighting the poor working conditions of migrant workers who are building football stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup. Simple Minds are booked to play a gig in Qatar on 29 January Simon Macfarlane, UNISON international committee spokesperson, said “Workers are being drafted in mainly from India, Nepal and Bangladesh and forced to live in squalid conditions, paid as little as 45 pence an hour and work in a very dangerous environment. Almost 1000 workers have died in Qatar building infrastructure for the world cup and if nothing changes the death toll could be as much as 4000 by the time the World Cup starts in 2022. Simple Minds have an excellent record in supporting Human Rights across the world. They were leading campaigners against South African apartheid. And songs like Belfast Child and Mandela Day are loved for their message as much as anything else. It would be great if they highlighted the plight of migrant workers in Qatar”  END Notes TUC Fair Play Qatar campaign https://www.tuc.org.uk/international-issues/countries/qatar Letter from UNISON Scotland international committee to Simple Minds is online here:http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/international/

Scotland v Qatar game - SFA must challenge Qatar on workers rights

Thu 4 June 2015

 From Simon McFarlane, secretary UNISON Scotland International Committee:

As you will have seen the FIFA story is continuing to grow and run. We need to ensure everything possible is done to keep focus on labour rights in Qatar. There is a lot of activity around the Scotland v Qatar game tomorrow (Friday 5 June) in Edinburgh. The SFA have so far done little to challenge Qatar on workers’ rights (over 1,400 deaths and the Kafala system – all power lies with employer including whether you can leave).

If you can get to Edinburgh tomorrow and join the campaigning activities, please do so, details below. If you can’t please support the campaign in other ways. One simple thing you can do is print off an A4 message from the Playfair Qatar site and post a selfie of yourself holding it up (ideally with a football top on) , see: http://playfairqatar.org.uk/#section-fans-photos and http://playfairqatar.org.uk/scotland-v-qatar-june-5-2015/ .   

There’s a Facebook page for tomorrow at https://www.facebook.com/events/1639123382985614/