ALKHOBAR, 11 July — The labor dispute between British Aerospace (BAE) and its Saudi workers has opened on a new front. BAE’s Saudi workers in Taif have started legal action against the firm. BAE employs more than 400 Saudis in Taif. For the past two weeks those workers have been going in groups, generally department by department, to Taif’s Labor Office. Their legal action against BAE is less advanced than the cases against BAE in Riyadh and Dammam, because the workers had hoped to come to an amicable agreement without resorting to outside arbitrators. Arab News spoke by telephone to the BAE’s Saudi workers in Taif who asked to remain anonymous fearing personal attacks from BAE’s management. The workers have three main demands, which they have presented to Taif’s Labor Office. First, they want the forms, which BAE’s management forced them to sign on June 26, nullified by the Ministry of Labor. The Saudi workers signed the forms, which allow changes in their contracts and salary cuts, only because they were threatened with termination if they did not sign. Most of BAE’s Saudi workers are family men and loss of their jobs would be catastrophic for their dependents.
The workers have also requested that the Taif Labor Office instruct BAE to cease its discriminatory practices in regards to salaries and benefits. BAE’s Saudi workers receive lower salaries and fewer benefits than their western counterparts, despite the fact that most of the Saudis are better educated than the expatriates.
Six Saudi workers have an additional serious grievance against BAE, in that their salaries have already been cut by 25 percent. These six Saudis enrolled in an on-the-job training program with BAE in October 2000. Under the terms of the 18-month program, the workers’ salaries were reduced by 25% until the program’s completion in March 2002. In April 2002, they expected that their salaries would return to the per-training level, but that didn’t happen. The six workers have pleaded with BAE management to be compensated at the pre-training level to no avail. The only response they received from the company was one of the pre-printed forms to sign, which authorizes further changes in their contracts and perhaps another pay cut. These six workers are in greater difficulty than their colleagues, because when they began their training they were forced to sign new contracts which were good only for the duration of the training program. Standard practice in the past was that Saudi workers were offered regular BAE employment contracts again, after the training was completed. As that has not happened, the six employees fear that they have no valid employment contracts with BAE.
The decisions from the Taif Labor Office in the individual cases should start to be issued next week. The Saudi BAE workers in Taif are almost certain that they will end up in the same situation as BAE workers in other parts of the Kingdom. With that in mind they have consulted a lawyer and started to organize in preparation for a class action lawsuit against BAE.
