JEDDAH, 10 July — "Our salary was promised on a monthly basis… but until now it’s been delayed for two to three months. And we have been forced to work overtime for more than six months without pay. Staff who want to go before their contracts end must pay up to SR10,000."
This is the text of a fax sent to Arab News in wake of the publication of a story in our pages about how the Kingdom’s flagship hospital was experiencing cash-flow problems. The latest fax was sent from another hospital.
The Public Relations lady at that hospital contacted by Arab News denied that the employees have been fined for breaking their contracts, but added that there has been "a delay in paying their salaries."
She explained that "the hospital is a business and we have only been in business a short time. You must expect cash-flow problems."
Asked whether the staff who sent the fax were contracted on the basis that they would shoulder the start-up problems with the investors and owners of the hospital, and if they would therefore be receiving a share of the profits, Ms. Molouk was halted in her tracks.
Pressed to give a definitive answer, she said "No."
Then why, we asked, do you use cash flow problems as a justification? There was no reply.
This kind of attitude is common in business in this part of the world. A smiling Saudi manager in one PR business informed me that "90 percent of salaries in business are paid late." And is he comfortable with that? On his salary, he can afford to be: he drives a large car and has some cash left over at the end of each month.
Hamid, a Syrian working in PR and advertising, has not been paid for three months.
"It’s a new firm and they told me there would be a reduced salary for a month or two. I accepted this and was told that I would get a bonus to make up the difference," he told Arab News.
He was not told that the reduction would be from SR1,500 to zero and that he would be banned from the premises when he finally left and returned to ask for his salary. He is not the only person in the firm to find himself in this situation.
The question has to be asked: if you cannot afford to finance a business properly and accept the responsibility of employing people who have commitments and families, then why begin in the first place?
Is it to be able to tell the other "businessmen" that you have several businesses?
Posing in coffee shops playing the executive while employees and families, who enter a contract on the strength of your word suffer, is just immoral.
"Pay the laborer his hire before the sweat dries on his brow," said Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him).
It was sound advice a millennium and a half ago, and it remains that today.
