The response of the Strabag company’s representative to Human Rights Watch’s approach in relation to a migrant workers’ complaint.
During the Sochi Olympics, Strabag, an Austrian company co-owned since 2007 by Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska (http://www.strabag.com/databases/internet/_public/content.nsf/web/BE7782B9E4975D46C1257A0D00408636), used subcontractor Rai, which did not pay its migrant workers. Possibly in order to free up funds to pay cuts to officials, the company, Rai, massively employed migrants without pay at the construction of 5-star hotels in the Olympic Village. After finishing the work, the migrants were detained by Russian police and deported.
According to Strabag’s answer, not paid people were working for subcontractor which was not in line with contractual obligations nor with legal regulations. No probes followed.
For background, see the full report by Human Rights Watch “Race to the Bottom. Exploitation of Migrant Workers Ahead of Russia’s 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi”.
In the same time, anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny made a map of alleged corruption in Sochi. Se also report by Boris Nemtsov † and Leonid Martynyuk Winter Olympics in the Subtropics.
For more Deripaska related links, see here and here.
Answer Human Rights Watch_Strabag
The text of the document has been extracted automatically and may contain errors.
### Text extracted from: https://tbcarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/Answer-Human-Rights-Watch_Strabag-1.pdf
STRABAG AG Tel. +43 (0) 1 22422 – 1008
Group Compliance Officer Fax +43 (0) 1 22422 – 1024 STRABAG
Donau-City-StraRe 9 e-mail: manfred.rosenauer@strabag.com
A – 1220 Wien http://www.strabag.com
Human Rights Watch
Jane Buchanan
350 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10118 – 3299
December, 18th 2013
Dear Ms Buchanan,
Thank you for your letter, dated 16″ of September 2013 which was addressed to Hans Peter
Haselsteiner, the predecessor of Dr. Birtel in the CEO position of STRABAG SE. In my position and
responsibility as group compliance coordinator it was delegated to me to follow up and to address
these issues. We investigated thoroughly and according to our findings STRABAG itself acted
always not only within the regulations of the applicable law but also within the guidelines of our ethic
system. Nevertheless we also got reports from our local management that single sub contractors
were not in line with contractual obligations and some times even not in line with regulations
stipulated by law. But these issues had been already dealt with when we started our inquiry.
We do employ quite a number of subcontractors in Russia and try to maintain a set of such with a
proven track record as sub contractors on a regular basis. This track record is proven by acquired
trust, keeping to contractual regulations and stipulations by law as well as fulfilling their obligations.
However on a site like the Olympic Village in Sotchi, with numerous individual projects ongoing at
the same time and all of these under an immense time pressure it is inevitable that we had to work
with subcontractors available at that time because the work needed done exceed the capacity of
our usual sub contractors by far. The structure of our contractual obligations set out by our client in
addition did provide the client with certain rights on choice of subcontractors which resulted in a set
of obviously less reliable partners than usual.
You have attached to your letter some earlier correspondence. Despite some investigation,
unfortunately, we could not locate who received this letters in our company.
Over the course of the Project Olympic Village we estimate that we had about 15,000 workers from
subcontractors on our site. All of these are going through a scrutinising process with the local
government in order to obtain required Work Visa and their employers will have to fulfil certain
criteria. Local authorities use a costly monitoring system for workers of subcontractors for such
isolated cases which you mentioned in your letter. We have health and safety procedures and
monitoring in place and these cover all people working on site, whether from subcontractors or our
own staff. In any case we are ready to deal with individual cases as they become apparent to us.
The violation of fundamental employment rights by a subcontractor constitutes a breach of their
contractual obligation as it is stated in our contracts that subcontractor has to respect all laws
(including the labour law) of Russia.
Firmenbuch: FN 61689w, Landesgericht Klagenfurt, Sitz: Spitta/Drau Seite 1/2
UID-Nr. ATU 14487107, DVR 0009008
STRABAG AG Tel. +43 (0) 1 22422 – 1008 STRAB AG
Group Compliance Officer Fax +43 (0) 1 22422 – 1024
Donau-City-Strake 9 e-mail: manfred.rosenauer@strabag.com
A – 1220 Wien http://www.strabag.com
Earlier in this letter | explained that due to the large amount of workforce needed we had to employ
subcontractors without a proven track record with us. The contract with company Rai, which you
refer to in your letter, was finally terminated. Due to the fact that the finishing date of our project is
fixed and cannot be postponed we had to have executed the work previously done by Rai by more
reliable subcontractors or with our own staff.
A similar situation is with the other companies mentioned in your letters, where we had to reduce
their scope of work, as they were not able to meet the contractually agreed time schedule and other
terms of the contract.
The project is currently in its final stage and our site team is extremely occupied in finishing the
project. However, we are willing to look into individual cases. If there are practises which
substantially deprive subcontractor’s staff of their rights we are willing to act, within the contractual
framework, to restore the rights of individuals working on our site.
Sincerely
Group Compliance Coordinator
Firmenbuch: FN 61689w, Landesgericht Klagenfurt, Sitz: SpittaDrau Seite 2/2
UID-Nr. ATU 14487107, DVR 0009008