JEDDAH, 2 October 2005 — The labor court yesterday ruled in favor of the former employees of Al-Rajhi Commercial Foreign Exchange, which merged with seven other money exchanges in order to form Bank Albilad.
The bank was ordered to provide jobs for the employees as well as pay their salaries and benefits for the past six months.
The decision was made by the three-member preliminary committee for settling labor disputes with Ali Hassan Al-Ghamdi as its chairman and Hassan Awad Al-Thubaity and Abdul Aziz Al-Sulaiman as its members.
“The defendant, Bank Albilad, must allow the plaintiffs to work with it and pay their salaries since their transfer to it from Al-Rajhi Commercial Foreign Exchange and their service will be considered continuous from the date of their employment by Al-Rajhi,” the labor court said in its unanimous decision.
However, the court said Bank Albilad could appeal to the higher court in Riyadh within 30 days. The court said it made its decision after looking into the cases presented by employees to the labor offices in Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and Taif.
Khaled Abu Rashed, lawyer for the former Al-Rajhi employees, said he had argued the case based on two salient points. First, in accordance with Article 89 of the labor law, Bank Albilad must pay the salaries of the employees of the eight money exchanges, which were merged to form the bank. The other point is that the Council of Ministers instructed Bank Albilad to pay the dues in full of the employees of the eight money exchanges, Abu Rashed said.
Al-Rajhi transferred its employees to Albilad on the basis of the Cabinet decision, the labor court said. “But the bank did not allow them to work and thereby violated the Cabinet decision of 19/4/1425 and also Article 89 of the labor law,” it added.
The labor court decision came after hundreds of Al-Rajhi employees petitioned the office of the National Society of Human Rights and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) in Jeddah urging them to intervene and force Albilad to accept them and pay them their dues which amounted to some SR20 million in salaries for about 1,000 employees.
The court rejected the arguments of Albilad’s legal representatives and said the bank was legally bound to pay the contractual dues of the employees since their transfer from Al-Rajhi.
“The bank is responsible for the continuous implementation of the work contacts of the plaintiffs who were working for Al-Rajhi Commercial with valid contracts,” the labor court said.
Rejecting the bank’s argument that it is an independent entity and had nothing to do with the Al-Rajhi employees, the court said the bank was responsible for paying all workers’ dues in accordance with the Cabinet decision.
Muhammad Al-Sayegh, an employee of Al-Rajhi, said the labor court should have made the decision six months ago, adding that the delay had led them all into debt.
Faisal Khoja, another employee, said the Al-Rajhi employees had been living without salary or benefits for the last six months.
