RIYADH: How much would you pay to get a $133-a-month job in a fast food restaurant in Saudi Arabia?
A group of Indian workers say they paid Rs.100,000 (about $2,300) to a labor recruiter in Mumbai who promised them jobs as food preparers and cashiers in the Kingdom for $267 (SR1,000) a month. But when they arrived they were told they would be janitors earning SR500 a month ($133) because their salaries would be garnished to pay for the visas.
The sponsor, they say, ignored the contract drawn up in Mumbai and dictated his own terms after the Indians arrived.
“Back home we signed a contract for two years with the local agent in Mumbai for a monthly salary of SR800 ($213) plus SR200 ($53) for the food allowance,” one of the aggrieved workers told Arab News yesterday.
However, he said the first month's salary was only SR500 and the sponsor told them the difference was going to make them pay for their own work visas and “other allied charges.” Furthermore, the workers say that they specifically applied to work as qualified fast-food employees running the food-preparation stations and the cash registers. Instead they were handed mops. Another worker, Kumar, said that 70 of the 90 workers reluctantly agreed to the lower wages after the sponsor deported seven of the workers as an example of what would happen to the rest. The seven workers ended up back in India, unemployed and Rs.100,000 poorer.
“The 70 workers are forced to accept this since they paid so much money to the recruiter in Mumbai,” said Kumar. “Our only demand is give us facilities and salaries as stipulated in the original labor contract, which indicated the monthly salary of SR800, plus SR200 for food, accommodation for two years and the Iqama expenses to be borne by the employer.”
Thirteen of the workers have refused to accept the sponsor’s new terms. They are camped out in a tent in Riyadh's Badiah district because they have nowhere else to go.
R. Muraleedharan from the Federation of Kerala Associations in Saudi Arabia told Arab News the workers are able to eat out of the kindness of fellow Indians who are providing them meals. He said his organization has asked the Indian Embassy to intervene on behalf of the workers.
Meanwhile, the name of the sponsor and the labor recruiter in Mumbai remains off the record and it is unclear if any probe of alleged illegal recruitment and sponsorship practices will take place.
