Earlier this year, the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) published a report highlighting the efforts of its Mauritian affiliate, the Construction, Metal, Wood and Employees Union (CMWEU), which, with crucial support from the Confédération Travailleurs Secteurs Privés (CTSP), sounded the alarm over serious labour rights violations at the Chinese multinational Beijing Construction Engineering Group Co. Ltd. (BCEG). In January 2025, CMWEU gathered 500 BCEG workers who raised urgent concerns, including unpaid wages and benefits, worker misclassification, and the lack of valid work permits for migrant employees, and, with union backing, formally petitioned the Minister of Labour for intervention, an appeal that remains unanswered

In response, on 7 October 2025, coinciding with the World Day for Decent Work, CMWEU and CTSP led an immediate work stoppage involving 600 Nepalese construction workers employed by BCEG. The protest denounced the company’s prolonged exploitation, particularly its failure to renew work permits that had expired 18 months earlier. This neglect placed workers in a precarious legal limbo, exposing them to possible deportation and preventing them from working lawfully.

By withholding their labour on this global day of solidarity, the workers and their unions demanded that BCEG immediately shoulder the costs of renewing all expired permits as a condition for resuming operations. The protest also shed light on other persistent abuses: systematic wage theft, the downgrading of skilled workers’ classifications, and deplorable living conditions in company dormitories lacking basic welfare amenities.

“Given the union’s unheeded efforts and BCEG’s persistent failure to rectify these injustices, CMWEU and CTSP have taken the step of facilitating the direct lodging of formal complaints with labour officers at CTSP’s headquarters,” said CMWEU representative Reeaz Chutto. “This approach ensures that workers’ grievances reach the government without exposing them to retaliation. We will no longer tolerate the violation of human and workers’ rights in Mauritius.”

BWI strongly condemns the systemic exploitation and negligence of the Beijing Construction Engineering Group Co. Ltd. (BCEG) in Mauritius, whose blatant disregard for fundamental workers’ rights constitutes an inexcusable act of corporate abuse that weaponises legal precarity. Such grave violations of international labour standards and Decent Work principles cannot stand. In full solidarity with CMWEU and the broader Mauritian labour movement, BWI commends their courageous action on the World Day for Decent Work as a powerful reminder that freedom of association is the cornerstone of justice. BWI demands that BCEG immediately renew all workers’ permits, repay stolen wages, and guarantee humane living and working conditions, while urging the Mauritian Ministry of Labour to hold the company fully accountable for its violations.