About 600 foreign construction workers have gone on strike in Qatar's first official labour dispute since the Gulf state amended its labour law last year. The labourers - mainly from India, Pakistan and Nepal - stopped working four days ago in protest at their salary and living conditions, embassy and company officials said on Sunday.
In 2004, Qatar became the third country in the region behind Kuwait and Bahrain, to allow workers the right to strike and form trade unions.
"We've been asked to intervene and help mediate," one embassy official said, declining to be identified.
Four private Qatari companies and one United Arab Emirates-based firm are involved in the dispute.
An official from Al-Ajaj Engineering Company, one of the firms involved in the strike, said he expected the issue to be resolved this week.
One of the workers, 36-year-old Pakistani electrician Abdulaziz, said he had been promised a salary of 1000 riyals ($274.9) per month but that he was receiving only 600 riyals.
"We've been trying to get the money owed to us for months and this is our last resort. But this is risky because each day not worked, is a day not paid," he told Reuters.
With a flourishing domestic economy fuelled by high oil and gas prices, OPEC-member Qatar has witnessed a construction boom over the past two years. Like all other Gulf countries, much of the construction work is carried out by cheap foreign labour.
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