We are probably the only country in the world experiencing a worn-out and dated managerial system. We are also probably the only country in the world that finds it difficult to improve or develop the way our country operates. In fact, we still resist the idea of making Friday and Saturday the official weekend like other Middle Eastern countries.
And despite the fact that it is boiling hot during the summer in Saudi Arabia, we are still debating whether to change school and working hours during Ramadan. The Civil Service Ministry insists on beginning the day at 10 a.m. without making any exceptions for the deadly summer heat.
The Human Rights Commission (HRC), Saudi Arabia’s government-run human rights organization, has urged the Labor Ministry to issue directives to stop employers from forcing laborers to work in the dangerous mid-day heat. HRC officials say that record high temperatures in some parts of the Kingdom this summer make such directives even more important.
Many laborers are known to faint and suffer sunstrokes when working in high temperatures. In certain factories, temperatures can reach up to 60 C. Do employers have any human dignity and consideration for a person’s health, especially when one takes into consideration the amount of output and profit that an individual laborer generates? Is there any difference between a human being and a machine? Even machines become faulty when left in the sun and exposed to heat.
Let us hope and pray that owners of factories and construction sites realize that profit can still be earned with a bit of logical thinking and humane behavior. All that employers need to do is to have laborers begin work at dawn and end at noon or by applying different winter and summer time schedules as applied in many countries of the world.
We have to pay attention to the working hours of laborers especially since it is getting hotter maybe because of global warming.
I truly admire the HRC for their humanitarian work and I encourage them to pursue their mission in making official this procedure for guaranteeing the rights of the weak and poor in the Kingdom.
