Mahmoud Ahmad
The Ministry of Labor and Social Development, in its ongoing efforts to streamline the system, has provided major recourse in wage protection. Despite these, the issue of delayed salaries has risen to the surface again when we all thought that employees would be protected against wage delay from big companies when a raft of tough measures were introduced some months ago to tackle such problems.
Minister of Labor and Social Development Mufrij Al-Haqbani said at that time when new measures were being introduced that expatriates have the right to transfer their sponsorships if their sponsors delay their salaries for more than three months. A video call service was activated to enable workers to reach the minister. Callers could also reach the minister or other officials in the ministry by calling customer service at 19911.
Employers and employees no longer need to visit the main office in Riyadh to have their inquiries answered and paperwork processed.
While not using all these legal recourse available to them, the victims of salary delay are resorting to measures that are not familiar here. In recent weeks, employees working in a big construction company blocked the roads in protest following their salary not being given on time. This move is not familiar in Saudi Arabia and these people should have gone to proper channels to register their complaints either to the company itself or the Labor Ministry, rather than block public roads. Other employees went even further and burned company busses in a move that is again considered radical.
No one favors violence as a means of expressing a problem and we are all against it. But we should also take into great consideration what had driven these workers to the edge that they took this step. I have to state here that I am not aware of the details of what led to this problem and what happened between that company and its workers. All what I know, is what many people know, is that salaries were not paid to these workers for many months. Both expat and Saudi workers suffered equally and will suffer when salaries are not paid anywhere.
I want the Saudi or expat employees, who receive their salaries on time and pay bills and support their family, to take a moment and picture themselves in the shoes of a worker whose salary has been delayed for many months. How would a Saudi employee react when he tells the landlord that he cannot pay rent because his salary has been delayed? What would he will feel when he finds that he cannot afford to take his sick son or daughter to the hospital simply because his salary is delayed. How many times will he be able to borrow money? In the case of an expat employee, his concern would be how would he be able to send money back home to support his family? How can this worker pay the tuition of his daughter or son in school? How can he budget a day-today existence? Salary delay proves to be an emotional, psychological and financial disaster as we can see.
I met a friend of mine, who works in Madinah and who has not been paid for two months because his company is facing financial difficulties, and he was quite cheerful and patient. Now, lucky for him he is from a close-knit family that has other businesses. So far, they have been providing for him until he gets paid. But such family support cannot be had everywhere and such is not the case for other workers, especially the low paid expats who are here alone by themselves. Who will give them a loan to get by through tough times? No one, as I would assume most of the people near him are either low paid or going through the same problem. Whatever money he is getting as a loan, even if it was little, is adding to his problem of not getting paid because it is a debt that he will have to pay later. Did that worker come to this country to work and provide for his family or find himself in a situation that his salary is delayed and due to that drown in debt?
We need the tough laws implemented and an active role from the embassies and consulates of these workers. Some companies, and I am not in anyway referring to the company above, are taking advantage of expat workers’ ignorance of the laws and stall payment. Later they negotiate with them to accept taking half of the delayed salaries as a quick solution to the problem, and also in the process to give up the right to demand the other half. A hotline between the expat workers and their embassies should be active to report any salary abuse and a law firm should be appointed and ready to handle salary delay cases. For such workers, an emergency fund should be set up, so when employees are not receiving their salaries, at least the minimum basics are covered financially.
Workers should not be the weakest link and suffer most of the damage. Some sort of a solidarity program should be established by embassies and consulates to deal with their nationals’ issues. In addition, a legal campaign against abusive companies stalling payment should be waged on a full scale. Once companies feel the heat, then they will not risk abusing their workers.
The writer can be reached at mahmad@saudigazette.com.sa
Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng
