Thirty-three of 44 current and former contract workers who paid large recruiting fees say they didn’t receive refunds after working within the company’s Saudi operations
In February, one of the world’s richest employers, Amazon, announced it had refunded nearly $2m to more than 700 overseas workers who had been forced to pay big recruiting fees to get work at the company’s warehouses in Saudi Arabia.
It was a rare win for migrant laborers, a class of vulnerable workers who are often targeted for deceptive recruiting tactics and other abuses. One Nepali laborer said he was so shocked when a refund from Amazon appeared in his bank account that he stayed up much of the night, rechecking his account balance on his phone.
Written by Pramod Acharya
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/20/amazon-labor-abuse-saudi-arabia under the title “Workers in Saudi Arabia say Amazon failed to compensate them for labor abuses: ‘They played a game against me’”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
