By Khaled Al-Wabel
ARTICLE 77 is one of the very important element of the Kingdom’s Labor Law. It’s actually one of the amendments in the law, which was made recently.
The amended law says: “In case of termination due to invalid reason in an indefinite contract, the aggrieved party is entitled to 15 days wages for each year of service. The sum of compensation to be paid to aggrieved party cannot be less than 2-month salary.”
Supporters say the article puts an end to extra government protection given to workers for not losing job. It encourages workers to rely on convenience and creates unproductive bureaucratic practices. Although it provides job security it will have an opposite result of reducing productivity.
They also say that Article 77 brought balance and protected the rights and interests of employers, which is as important as protecting employees.
The above argument is acceptable in an organized market where citizens’ rights are duly protected. In my opinion the Ministry of Labor and Social Development should have given importance to implementing Article 3 of the Labor Law rather than applying Article 77.
Article 3 insists that job is the right of a citizen and others should not be allowed to practice it unless they fulfill the necessary conditions mentioned in the law. Citizens have equal right to work.
Due to the presence of a large number of unqualified and cheap foreign workers, the Kingdom’s job market has been going through chaos and confusion during the past three decades
Employers have been giving priority to foreign workers as they were not prevented from doing so due to absence of required rules and regulations including minimum wage.
Foreign investment and the insistence of foreign investors to recruit and employ expatriates have further deteriorated the job market situation as it has negatively affected Saudi workforce.
According to Shoura Council member Dr. Abdullah Al-Jughaiman, some 50,000 Saudi workers have been terminated from service in the private sector and were replaced by 172,000 foreign workers.
Can anybody say this is a rational move?
The recruitment door is still open without any restriction. If private companies had appointed Saudis in place of terminated Saudis we would have accepted it.
We cannot implement Article 77 in this disorganized job market where Saudi citizens are forced to compete with workers from all over the world to get a job in his own country.
Another important matter that has been ignored by authorities is the limited opportunities citizens have to engage in free enterprises as a result of long working hours and lack of laws to regulate free labor market. Saudi citizens cannot compete with expatriate workers because of their social and family commitments. At the same time, expatriates dominate the market.
Tasattur or illegal cover-up business is another important issue which has been eating away the national economy. We don’t see any major campaign to end this negative practice. Authorities should understand that foreign businessmen are coming to the Kingdom using work visas and they engage in various business activities in the name of Saudis.
As a result of this situation, citizens are not getting any opportunity to engage in free enterprises after their job at public or private sectors. So efforts must be made to protect the legitimate rights of citizens after removing discrepancies in the Kingdom’s job market.
