Plan to terminate handling, cleaning workers at co-ops as part of 'Kuwaitization'

KUWAIT: A report was published yesterday suggesting violations to the labor law in which some co-op society baggers have fallen victims of malpractices committed by their third-party employers. According to a report published by Al-Qabas yesterday, some porters hired to work at co-ops through contractors do not receive monthly salaries, but instead live off tips they receive from customers. Not only that, but companies also force each worker to pay KD 60 a month as a 'fee' from the tips they collect, according to the report, which in many cases leaves them with little to no cash by the end of the month.

"It is only realistic for an employer to pay his employees their salaries, yet there are expat workers in Kuwait who are forced to pay 'salaries' to their employers," the newspaper wrote, noting that Asian baggers who take trolleys from co-op cashiers to customers' cars to help load goods receive a tip which varies from 50 fils to KD 1 per trip at most. "The strange thing is that these laborers pay their employer, because he believes they receive large amounts of money in tips," the newspaper argued.

A worker named Mohammad from Bangladesh is quoted in the report saying that he pays KD 60 to his company every month and keeps the rest of the tips, and this applies to hundreds like him. He said he is OK with this arrangement to a certain extent, but plans to move to another job in a year's time when his current contract expires.

Meanwhile, the Public Authority for Manpower and the Ministry of Social Affairs will jointly commence a new set of procedures this month to terminate the contracts of expatriates working in various co-op societies around Kuwait in a bid to resolve the demographic imbalance, said informed sources, noting that both sides will start with handling and cleaning workers to terminate their contracts and deport them.

Kuwait University campus
Minister of Education and chairman of the universities supreme council Hamed Al-Azmi stressed Kuwait University will hand over its current campus to a new government university once it moves into the new campus of Sabah Al-Salem university in Shadadiya. Azmi added that according to article 40 of law number 76 pertaining government universities, Kuwait University, its colleges, centers, management, buildings and facilities will all be transferred to the new campus built under law number 30/2004.
"Once this is done, a new government university will be built in its place under the name of Abdullah Al-Salem University," Azmi said, pointing out that the current campuses cannot be relinquished except to a government university and after the universities supreme council's approval, which strongly denied social media reports about plans to allocate Kaifan or any other campus to any private university.

Fish auctions
Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of State for Services Affairs Khaled Al-Roudhan yesterday issued new regulations for fish auctions. According to the new regulations, fish and shrimp cannot be auctioned except by a broker licensed by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) and registered to operate in a certain location. The regulations also conditioned that auctioneers must be Kuwaitis (GCC nationals exempted) having good conduct, clean criminal records, not be removed from MoCI registers in the past five years and have valid health certificates.

By A Saleh and Agencies