Red Cross tsunami workers abused
CBC News | Posted: March 17, 2010 10:13 PM | Last Updated: March 18, 2010
Some construction workers hired by the Canadian Red Cross to help rebuild communities following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were left stranded and never paid for their work, according to an investigation by Radio-Canada.
Canadians were among the most generous in their response to the disaster, donating more than $360 million to relief efforts.
As part of reconstruction efforts, the Red Cross built nearly 6,000 houses in 22 villages in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
The houses were built primarily by workers who were recruited about 2,000 kilometres away in Java and hired through sub-contractors and agents.
But some of those middlemen vanished with the labourers’ pay, leaving hundreds of men hungry and trapped far from home, according to an investigation by the Radio-Canada program Enquête.
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"It is the inconvenient truth of the tsunami operation that the men were being trafficked and abused," said Virgil Grandfield, a former information officer for the Canadian Red Cross.
Grandfield, who resigned from the organization because he was appalled by the treatment of the workers, has spent the last six months trying to get justice for them.
'If the person who put that loonie or toonie in that can, if they knew what was happening, if they knew what I saw, they would be livid.' — Former Canadian Red Cross employee Virgil Grandfield
"If the person who put that loonie or toonie in that can, if they knew what was happening, if they knew what I saw, they would be livid," said Grandfield.
In 2007, Grandfield said, he was sent to deal with a problem in the district of Calang, a day’s journey from the capital of Banda Aceh.
A Red Cross field manager had been taken hostage because people were upset that construction had stopped for several months, Grandfield said.
He said two field officers told him workers were leaving the site because they were not being paid or fed. Local charities, government officials and even those living in new homes confirmed they knew the workers were being ripped off.
"For us here, no matter how poor we are, we always have something to eat, we received aid," said one woman who identified herself as Anidar. "They have no aid."
Grandfield said he was approached by the workers themselves in the village of Mata. The village, entirely rebuilt by the Red Cross, is called Kanada village by locals.
Complained to Red Cross
When Grandfield complained to the Red Cross about the situation, he said, he was initially accused of having made up the story.
After Grandfield submitted some written reports, the Red Cross asked one of its local engineers to investigate.
The report concluded that 150 workers did leave one site, but that it was just over a misunderstanding.
"In one occasion, basically the one, the foreman, had decided not to pay his employees and rather to leave — which obviously came to our attention very quickly," said the Red Cross’s director of international operations, Jean-Philippe Tizi.
The Red Cross said it reminded its main contractor, Wika, of its obligation to pay its workers.
Three months after he reported the problem, Grandfield said, he learned the workers' situation had worsened.
He said he immediately pressed the president of the Canadian Red Cross and the organization’s board of governors to address the situation.
Finally, the Red Cross hired the firm Ernst & Young to conduct an independent audit of the situation — a process that would take months. The audit was finally released in August 2008, eight months after Grandfield had first disclosed the problem.
'Canadians should be very proud of the work that was completed ... we housed thousands of families.' — Pam Aung Thin, Red Cross director of public affairs and government relations
In a version of the report released to Radio-Canada, all of the findings were removed leaving only some of the recommendations.
A letter sent to Grandfield by the Red Cross contained more of the recommendations including ensuring proper payment to workers and raising their living conditions to meet established minimum conditions.
Problem resolved: Red Cross
As far as the Red Cross is concerned, the problem has been resolved, Tizi said.
"The first proof of the fact that we solved the problem is that this village in particular [Kanada village] is built, with high standard quality [houses]," he said.
Although the Red-Cross maintains these kinds of incidents are isolated, during a recent visit to Java’s Cirebon district Radio-Canada met dozens of villagers who said the problem went beyond one contractor in one area.
The Enquête team met with several workers who worked on Kanada village for the Canadian Red Cross several months after the problem was said to have been resolved.
"There we were treated like exiled people, thrown away — even lower than trash," said one man.
The Canadian Red Cross was not the only organization faced with problems with contractors.
Luc Gauvin, who worked for two years as an architect for a small non-governmental organization and for the Swiss Red Cross, said he cancelled one-third of all contracts he signed with local contractors.
"We came with good intentions to build houses for the victims of the tsunami," Gauvin said. "But, the contractors, they were only there to make money."
The Red Cross must take responsibility for an unacceptable situation, Grandfield said.
"Find the workers and apologize for this happening and then … compensate them for it," he said.
Red Cross reacts
The allegations made by Grandfield and Radio-Canada are "simply not true," said Pam Aung Thin, director of public affairs and government relations for the Canadian Red Cross.
The Red Cross had measures in place to make sure that workers were not mistreated and took the issue seriously when it received complaints from Grandfield, Aung Thin said in an interview on CBC’s Power & Politics with Evan Solomon Wednesday.
An isolated situation involving about 40 workers was identified and the situation was addressed, she said.
"But to keep it in context, there were 22 villages and about 4,000 workers overall that were hired, so [it was] a small percentage, but still too many," Thin said.
The organization then brought in third parties to perform unscheduled visits to sites to make sure that labour standards were being adhered to, she said.
"Canadians should be very proud of the work that was completed," Thin said. "We housed thousands of families."