JEDDAH — A lawyer for a local company based in the Eastern Province yesterday denied that it had not paid the salaries and other dues of 16 of its Filipino workers, as claimed by the Philippine Embassy in the press statement.
Adeeb Al-Hashmi, legal consultant of Al-Hammam Company, said he "totally rejects" the statement as published by Arab News on Tuesday.
“The Philippine Embassy was wrong ... The Philippine Embassy must know that the Saudi government has set out the labor law to protect foreign workers and all officials are committed to serve all expatriate communities in the country,” Al-Hashmi said in a statement written in Arabic and faxed to Arab News.
The statement released by the embassy on Monday said Labor Attaché Delmer R. Cruz, head of the embassy’s Eastern Region Operation, was recommending the urgent repatriation of the 16 Al-Hammam workers, who had made numerous complaints.
Among the complaints were alleged non-payment of salaries, being allegedly forced to sign resignation letter and waiver/quit claim, illegal termination of services, assignment of work different from that stated in the contract, non-provision of return ticket and non-payment of vacation leave and end-of-service benefits (ESB).
Cruz made the recommendation in a report to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in Manila, according to the embassy press statement.
Al Hasmi said in his faxed message that the report was “aimed making intrigues against the company and hurting its reputation.” He said the company was making progress since it was established 25 years ago.
“However, these intrigues would not affect the company’s progress and reputation and its service to the country. We assure you that we will demand our material and moral rights through legal means,” he said.
Al-Hashmi further said the names mentioned in the report were “not in the sponsorship of our company and this again confirms the dirty conspiracy.”
The embassy press statement actually did not mention the names of the 16 Al-Hammam workers.
The only names it mentioned were OFWs Vilma Aguinaldo, Aurora Estrella, Nadeera Baksan, Novifa Kalim and Angie Diaz — who were repatriated by the embassy early this month — but as a different issue.
In a telephone interview with Arab News, Cruz said he was standing by his report to the POEA.
He said, however, that the press statement was a little bit overtaken by events because 14 of the 16 workers had already been repatriated by Al-Hammam.
He said there were actually more than 130 employees of Al-Hammam who had to be sent home since September because of various complaints against the company, including their being made to stay idle without pay for lack of projects.
He said his office is looking into possible cases of contract violations.
Cruz said he had asked Al-Hammam for a complete list of those that it had repatriated but he had yet to receive the list until now.
