By Abdul Rahman Al-Lahim
Okaz
DISRUPTION of projects and failure of firms have become common as their employees go on strike for not receiving their salaries and benefits for several months. If one looks at their chief executive officers one can find them in safe places, enjoying their time in resorts following up the uproar caused by their workers in front of their institutions.
These CEOs know that the hands of justice would not reach them quickly because the measures to be taken by the government against them would be slow and complicated. Meanwhile, the intervention of government agencies to settle the labor dispute would take time. At the same time, the press statements of government officials would give a totally different impression.
The officials would be giving false promises that the dues of workers would be distributed immediately and their suffering would end once and for all. But these statements are aimed at cooling down the anger of workers who have not received their salaries for months.
The latest such reports came from a famous hospital in the Eastern Province, where employees were not receiving their salaries and other dues for several months. At the same time, they cannot go on strike because of the presence of patients at the hospital. Administrative officials at the hospital, meanwhile, were giving workers false promises that their dues would be settled soon.
Days and months have passed with the employees suffering without receiving their salaries. At the same time ministries of health and labor and social development did not intervene to solve the problem and take legal action against the hospital.
Being a health service provider the hospital has a different status and the issue should be dealt with differently while protecting the rights of workers. At the same time, the Health Ministry should intervene to ensure the hospital’s operation either directly or indirectly through a specialized company to protect the rights of both workers and patients admitted to the hospital.
The ministry should take legal action against the hospital’s owner for violating the rights of workers and impose punishment on him in accordance with the law. At the same time, the ministry should ensure that the hospital continues its operation without affecting health of patients. The halt of operation means it would affect the rights of workers and endanger the health of patients.
The Health Ministry should learn a lesson from the case and take precautionary measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future. The conditions for issuing license should include that the ministry would have the right to take control of a hospital’s administration when it faces financial trouble during the course of its operation.
The ministry should take over such hospitals either directly or through a specialized company to ensure continuous health services to patients. It should take legal action against the hospital’s owner and his managers until they pay the dues of workers and government in full.
Such action is also necessary to inject confidence in the minds of Saudis who want to work for private companies and make sure their rights are guaranteed by the law.
