“My father died bitter. Every night he would share his story and lament – I spent my entire life in a foreign country only for my family, and now, at the end of my life, I can't even support my family. I failed, I can't obtain better medical care, I can't afford your schooling.”
Muhammad Elias, 65, died of a heart attack on the second day of Eid al-Fitr. In a stifled voice, his grief-stricken son Imtiaz explained that “four months ago, the doctor told him that he had to perform an urgent operation to correct large blockages in the arteries. However, because he couldn’t raise US$7,000 for the surgery, he could only take medicines that relieve the symptoms he was experiencing.”
Muhammad died while waiting for his overdue salary and end-of-service benefits, which totalled BD8000 (US$21,300) and would have covered his life-saving operation cost three times over.
He leaves behind his wife, Josna, 48, his eldest son, Imtiaz, 25, his daughter Zakia, 18, and his youngest son, Adnan, 12.
Muhammad was one of the thousands of migrant workers whose wages and end-of-service benefits were stolen for years by GP Zachariades (GPZ), a now-defunct construction company that had held public and private contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. After GPZ’s bankruptcy, funds collected from creditors were used to settle dues for some of its 2000+ employees. But a year after leaving Bahrain, Muhammad and 17 of his colleagues have still not received their settlement.
“...38 years later, Muhammad was in the same building that he helped build, failed by his employer and the system, seeking justice.”
The total due to these workers, who were employed by the company from three to 38 years, amounts to approximately BD197,000 (USD652,000), roughly equivalent to the cost of establishing a medium-sized villa with an area of 500 square meters in Bahrain. Individually, they are owed between BD3,500 to BD40,560 (US$7,089 to US$108,157) each in unpaid wages and end-of-service benefits.
Civil society organisations helped Muhammad and his colleagues maintain contact with Bahrain’s Ministry of Labour in order to receive their dues. The Ministry reassured them that consultations with the company and its debtors were ongoing, and that the money owed to them would be with them soon. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company representative and the ministry asked the workers to return to their home countries and promised that their dues would be transferred to their bank accounts later. But the Ministry and the company did not keep their promise.
