The Employment Tribunal has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow in relation to the Bodufinolhu case that had surfaced recently.
This is the first hearing on the case that was filed at the tribunal back in July of this year after around 200 expatriate workers were left without months of backpay having worked on the construction of a resort on Baa Atoll Bodufinolhu.
Speaking to ‘The Press’ the local law firm representing the wronged migrant workers Public Interest Law Center PILC said that the tribunal’s hearing had been scheduled for tomorrow at 10 am.
The law firm said the tribunal had accepted the claim a month after it was filed. PILC said that in its claim it had requested an order that calls for immediate compensation to be given to the unpaid workers. It also called for an order that forces the parent company to arrange meal times and medical consultations and treatments of the migrant workers.
The workers had been under the paid docket of local construction company Riz Company Pvt Ltd and the company had been accused of exploitation and human trafficking of the migrants as well as failing to pay the government its undue fees.
PILC had also said that the company had inflicted irrevocable damages on the migrants by forcing them to become homeless and invite more damage to the already repressed workers.
The issue of the unpaid workers had surfaced earlier this year when the migrants on the island had held a strike against their employers and the issue made national headlines when the striking migrants had taken some locals as hostages in return for their demands to be met.
The escalation forced security forces to carry out an operation on the island to rescue the locals held hostage. The first few officers who attempted the rescue were met with a throng of hostile migrants and the locals were later rescued after the security forces attempted a broader operation.
