Thousands of striking construction workers in Bahrain say they will not return to work unless they are paid their outstanding wages immediately.
The workers for Al Hamad Contracting Company, a Sharja-based company with a strong presence in Bahrain, claim they have not received any pay for three months and can’t afford to even buy food for themselves.
This morning they called a mass strike, a move which has ground construction to a halt on several major projects including Marina West, Villamar Towers and Reef Island.
Construction Week visited four Al Hamad labour camps this morning in Askar, Salmabad and Sehla, which were full of thousands of people refusing to go to work and demanding their pay.
The workers say there is a total of 7000 people on strike, all of whom earn a base salary of US$185 (BHD 70) a month.
Engineers with the company, who earn a salary of around $1,857 (BHD 700) a month, also say they have not been paid since March.
Two senior Al Hamad engineers told Construction Week that the company is struggling to pay its salaries because it is owed around US $18.6 million (BHD 7 million) from the developers of the $700 million Marina West project.
Marina West’s public relations department denied the allegation this morning and said the company had no outstanding debts. They also denied that Al Hamad workers were on strike.
Meanwhile a spokesman for the $650 million Villamar Towers project said they would try and resolve the issue with Al Hamad’s management this afternoon. The spokesman said they had no outstanding debts with their main contractor.
“It would be unfortunate if problems with another developer had a ripple effect and hurt a project like ours,” he said.
“I can assure you that there are no financial issues with our company and we in fact just recently paid Al Hamad ahead of schedule.”
No one from Al Hamad management was available for comment.
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