RIYADH: Forty stranded Indian expatriate workers in the commercial capital of Jeddah, have sought legal redress after their company shut down due to bankruptcy.
Confirming the plight of the workers, S. Dakshina Moorthy , Consul Labor Welfare at the Indian Consulate in Jeddah, told Arab News yesterday that the workers are in a pathetic condition and they were compelled to seek legal recourse to resolve their problems.
The Indians were working for a bakery in Jeddah and have not been paid their salaries for the last six months.
"They continued to work in the company hoping their salary dues would be paid when the company's financial troubles blow over," Moorthy said.
"But the workers got another shock, when the company's management informed them that the establishment was forced to shut its operations as it had run into heavy losses and even the company's registration had expired," the diplomat said.
One of the aggrieved workers told Arab News that the Saudi employer stopped coming to the factory leaving the expatriate manager to face the angry workers. The company has a total of 76 workers, 40 of them Indians. The remainder are Indonesians, Filipinos and workers of other nationalities.
"Now the workers do not have money for their daily meals, no proper accommodation and they do not know what is going to happen next," Moorthy said, adding that some of the workers who had been in the Kingdom for more than 10 years have borrowed from friends to feed their co-workers.
Moorthy said the consulate was trying to contact the Saudi employer and ask him to decide the fate of these 40 workers. The official said labor department officials had assured the mission that they would take appropriate action against the sponsor, who had put all these workers in distress.
The labor department had instructed its inspectors to visit the factory site and submit a detailed report on this matter.
The diplomat said that the consulate had decided to offer meals daily to these stranded workers. He added that they are currently staying in the company accommodation, where they are without the basic facilities of water and power.
