sport news Migrant workers putting in 14-hour shifts in 30°C heat to complete ... trends now
Many of the £180-a-night cabins being marketed to World Cup fans are still being thrown together, with migrant workers on 14-hour shifts to complete them, Sportsmail can reveal.
A third of the Free Zone complex was still under construction yesterday, with some cabins still unfurnished shells. Unplumbed toilets were stacked outside them as workers hammered and drilled together cheap flat-pack beds and wardrobes to furnish them.
Two Indian migrant workers, who are earning just £25 a day, said site bosses were offering further ad-hoc bonuses of £25 to encourage them to work faster to get the work finished.
Migrant workers have been doing 14-hour shifts to complete the building of World Cup accommodation
Working in 30°C (86°F) heat, one of them said: ‘They are telling us, “Hurry, hurry”. They will pay four workers the bonus to fit things — lay the carpets (between the huts), install the air conditioning or the lights.
‘They say they want it finished in five days and no one is allowed to leave this work to go elsewhere.’
He also said he was working a 5am to 7pm shift with a one-hour break.
The unfurnished shells — blocks M to P of the complex — were marked on the site map at the entrance to the vast complex and appear to be among the two-bed cabins being marketed for £172 a night. Unpacked air-conditioning units, bed frames and wardrobes were piled outside these units, at the northern area of the vast complex near Doha’s Hamad International Airport.
It was a scene of frenetic work, with steamrollers compressing tar and stone on the desert sand and workers carrying pipes to plumb in to mobile air-conditioning units. The need for urgency was obvious.
Workers have been toiling away in scorching heat to complete unfinished cabins as fans continue to
