JEDDAH: Eight Indian nurses and a lab technician who received a favorable ruling from the Labor Court against their employer, Dr. Siddiqa Hospital in Jeddah, have yet to receive their unpaid salaries and their final-exit visas.

In April the court determined that Anna Verghese, Ivy K.C., Neethu Andan, Swapna P, Sumi Sojan, Sandhyamole C.K., Clara Thomas, Shabeena Abdulkhadeer and Mini Karunakaran should be paid their money due and be given their return tickets to India within six months.

“But the hospital management refused,” said one of the nurses in a faxed statement to Arab News where the workers appealed for their case to be made public. “Not only that, they are threatening us in various ways to spoil our life and career. Since March, we are fighting in the Labor Court for justice.”

Arab News approached the hospital for its reaction. It said in a faxed statement that it is “working to settle this matter as early as possible.”

“According to the amicable settlement made in the Labor Office, some of the issues have been already settled and others are expected to follow soon,” said the statement signed by Dr. Fouzia Pasha, a board member of the hospital.

In November, about a month after the six-month deadline ordered by the Labor Court in April for providing payment and exit visas, the plaintiffs started a work stoppage.

“We’re suffering so much because we have not been able to pay shop owners who gave us a lot of foodstuffs on credit,” the workers said in their statement. “Are we criminals or slaves of this hospital? Kindly publish the matter in your newspaper and express our heartfelt cry, pain and deprivation of our rights.”

According to directive 1/111 from Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, issued on Jan. 29, 2007, employers who delay payment for more than two consecutive months are prohibited from recruiting new employees from abroad for a period of 12 months.

The directive further states that employees, whose wages have been delayed for more than three consecutive months, have the right to file a complaint with the Labor Office to have their sponsorships transferred to another employer. (Under Saudi labor law, employees must typically obtain permission from their employers to resign and work elsewhere in the Kingdom.) This penalty for nonpayment of salaries also requires employers to bear the expenses of transferring this sponsorship.

According to Al-Gosaibi’s directive, companies that do not comply with this course of action can face a fine of between SR500 and SR3,000 per bereaved worker.

“The Labor Office should put pressure on the hospital by freezing its accounts related to labor-related paperwork,” said Tariq Al-Ibrahim, a Saudi lawyer who specializes in labor-related litigations. “It should also supervise the hospital closely. When the Labor Court issues a ruling to pay delayed salaries, (the payment) shouldn’t be postponed.”

Al-Ibrahim also urged employees not to wait for delayed salaries to accumulate. The employee, he says, should take immediate legal action after the first time a paycheck is delayed.

“It’s so unfair to deny employees — Saudis or non-Saudis — their rights. Paying these people their wages is a basic right,” he added.

In a recent campaign entitled “Rahma” (“Mercy”), Kaswara Al-Khatib, managing director of Full Stop Advertising, created a series of TV advertisements to encourage people to treat domestic and other foreign workers with basic dignity and respect.

“We want to deliver a message to people that they should not abuse workers. We also want to show them how to help workers and help improve people’s attitude toward them,” said Al-Khatib.