Standards for tournament services workers
Initiative description: Expanding the scope and application of the Workers’ Welfare Standards (WWS), or an adaptation of such, for workers engaged in the provision of services for all sites during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ tournament period. This includes workers in Qatar providing facilities management, hospitality, security, cleaning, catering, transport and other services for stadiums, training sites, and other official FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ sites such as headquarters hotels.
Transitioning from a focus on construction towards tournament operations, an increasing number of workers in additional sectors, including security, cleaning, catering and transport became linked to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. Subsequently, the scope of the audit and inspection process was gradually expanded to service-industry companies with new business relationships with FIFA, FIFA World Cup Qatar LLC (Q22) and the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC). The Workers’ Welfare Standards (WWS) were embedded into 173 hotel operators' contracts. During the tournament, the SC Workers’ Welfare Department (WWD) inspectors conducted more than 8,000 on-the-ground interviews of service workers. Where non-compliance was observed, the contractor was required to provide and implement a rectification plan within the defined timeline.
The first step in this process was to systemically include relevant workers’ welfare requirements in tender processes and contracts with companies that were to provide services for host country as well as tournament operations. This created the basis for effective enforcement of decent working and living conditions once relationships had been established and activities under the relevant agreements had commenced.
In 2021, the SC WWD was mandated to serve as a Workers’ Welfare & Labour Rights Functional Area within the Q22 organisational structure. This allowed for leveraging on the team’s experience, increasing synergies and covering the implementation of the WWS in Q22 and FIFA supplier service contracts linked to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. The SC WWD audit and inspection role for tournament operations contracts was supported by Elevate Ltd, a specialist welfare consultant appointed by FIFA and Q22.
The integration of the workers’ welfare requirements within FIFA, Q22 and SC procurement activities ensured that the SC WWD was involved in all relevant tenders and contracts for the tournament. This allowed due diligence to be carried out at the main contractor level and ensured effective supply chain management through monitoring and enforcement activities.
In addition, FIFA and Q22 launched a collaborative human rights due-diligence project with FIFA’s commercial affiliates. As part of the project, commercial affiliates met online to discuss human rights due-diligence plans associated with their activities linked to the tournament. Measures to ensure respect for labour rights by businesses associated with FIFA’s commercial affiliates were highlighted as an important area of collaboration emerging from the project.
Impact of Workers’ Welfare Standards (WWS) on the hospitality sector
Hospitality was the first non-construction sector to pilot the WWS. The standards were mapped to international hospitality best practices and local standards to identify whether they needed enhancement for the industry. A number of external stakeholders, including selected hotel operators, an external compliance monitor, Impactt Ltd, and Qatar’s Ministry of Labour (MoL), were also consulted in the process. Given the holistic nature of the WWS, no significant changes were required.
A total of 173 hotels were scoped into this programme, 21 of which began implementing the WWS as of December 2021 with the remaining hotels being onboarded in 2022. The SC audited and inspected 156 of these hotel operators, including their subcontractors, and reported a 14% improvement in the average compliance score of 134 hotel operators since the first engagement. The remaining 22 hotels were audited only once.
Hotel operators demonstrated a strong commitment to improving their welfare practices, particularly in the areas of ethical recruitment, accommodation and access to remedy.
These included:
Improvements in accommodation standards with 78% of the workforce housed in centralised accommodation with high-standard housing and leisure facilities.
Engagement with MoL-licensed agencies and inclusion of ethical recruitment clauses as a contractual obligation. Hotel operators focused on direct hiring to eliminate the risk of recruitment fees being charged.
Provision of life insurance and annual leave with return air tickets. Lower incidents of passport retention were reported, with hotel operators ensuring that staff were in possession of their personal documents.
Implementation of Workers’ Welfare Forums, as per the WWS, by 70 hotel operators to provide workers with access to remedy. The representatives of 44 of these hotels were trained by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Several hotels also included sub-contractors in their Workers’ Welfare Forums.
Stronger supply chain management through the demobilisation of non-compliant sub-contractors and the adoption of an improved due-diligence and selection process, which included seeking SC WWD’s approval prior to deploying sub-contractors.
Communication to staff about the SC’s anonymised grievance hotline.
Reimbursement of pre-departure medical costs incurred by workers during recruitment, based on submission of evidence. In addition, two hotels and one hospitality service provider reimbursed QAR 163,670 to 58 workers without the requirement to submit any evidence.
After the tournament, the programme continued to expand to cover additional hotels with which FIFA, Q22 and the SC established relationships, with a focus on capacity building and supply chain management.
Progress as at December 2022
173 hotels signed a call-off agreement.
156 hotels were audited (including 31 Team Base Camp Hotels).
14% overall improvement in compliance across 134 hotels since their first engagement.
70 hotels implemented Workers’ Welfare Forums.
26,360 total active workforce.
WWS implementation during FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™
During the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, the SC WWD implemented a four-stage tournament-time operating approach, which had been refined using lessons learned from earlier test events such as the FIFA Club World Cup 2020™, the FIFA Arab Cup 2021™ qualifiers, as well as other smaller events.
In advance of, and during the tournament, the SC WWD team members stationed at the tournament Main Accreditation Centre met over 44,000 workers to help raise awareness of the WWS and the grievance mechanisms available to them.
During the tournament, SC WWD inspectors conducted 8,086 on-the-ground interviews with workers from 232 contractors involved in the tournament. Through an enhanced automated tournament-time checklist, the SC WWD was able to identify, report and close 90% of the non-compliances identified by the end of the tournament, with 100% closed by 16 January 2023. As a result of the due diligence 123 contractors were reported to the MoL for further action. The SC WWD continues to follow-up with contractors and government agencies post-event to ensure that appropriate actions and enforcement are being taken.