JEDDAH, 7 October 2004 — The Labor Ministry has taken action against Saudi companies and individual employers for mistreating foreign workers and not paying their salaries. The ministry has banned the defaulters from recruiting foreign workers for five years.
“The Labor Ministry will continue to prevent individuals and companies which mistreat their workers or fail to pay their dues from recruiting workers,” said Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al-Mansour, deputy minister for labor affairs, who quoted a decision by Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi.
The latest action taken by the ministry covered four Saudi employers who failed to pay the salaries of their maidservants and did not respond to the Labor Office’s call to settle the disputes with their workers.
“Action was also taken against a private polyclinic when it refused to implement the decision taken by the Supreme Commission for the Settlement of Labor Disputes of a case it had with an expatriate female doctor,” Al-Mansour said without naming the clinic.
He said the ministry had also banned six private institutions from recruitment for refusing to implement the decision taken by the commission to settle labor disputes and ignoring the Labor Office’s notices to discuss cases presented by their employees.
There are more than seven million expatriate workers in the Kingdom. The majority of them work for private companies and Saudi individuals. Many expatriates have filed complaints against their employers for not paying their salaries and end of service benefits.
The Council of Ministers approved new measures last month to speed up the settlement of labor disputes. It gave subsidiary panels of the Supreme Commission the authority to issue a final verdict in all appeal cases and to decide punishments according to the law.
The Cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince Abdullah, insisted that the panels as well as primary committees give their decisions on the basis of the opinion of the majority of their members. “The decisions must be signed by all members. Those who oppose the decisions must include the reason,” the Saudi Press Agency said, quoting a Cabinet statement.
The Supreme Commission will have several subsidiary panels, each with at least three members, the Cabinet said when it made public alterations to the existing Labor Law. The chairman of the committee and its members will be named by the Cabinet on the recommendation of the labor minister, SPA said.
“The chairman of the panel will fix the date for looking into the case presented for appeal within 15 days of registration of the case and the panel must give its verdict on the dispute within 30 days after the first sitting,” Article 181 of the amended law said.
