The report that more than 1,000 employees of a major construction company in Jeddah have not been paid for six months is unfortunately not surprising. This has been going on for many years now. Companies that rely on government projects are subject to the vagaries of not being paid on time. For the owners and top executives of these firms that is bearable because they have accumulated wealth to tide them over for a several months without being paid. But what about the middle management and manual laborers who live on their salaries from month to month? With families to support they cannot afford to go six months without being paid.
Some companies seem to have forgotten Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) admonition to pay all workers promptly before the sweat dries on their backs.
The Ministry of Labor has said that it is investigating the problem and that its inspectors have visited the company’s offices and that it is no longer providing the construction firm with any services as a way of punishing it. That to me seems very little. Our government should intervene more vigorously when such a serious problem occurs. Since this problem of paying workers months late is one that we have been hearing about for many years, it would be appropriate for the Ministry of Finance to temporarily take over the running of this construction company to clean up the mess and pay all the workers their due salaries and benefits. And note that both Saudi and foreign employees of this construction company have not been paid on time.
But more importantly, the government should set up a salary fund. This emergency fund would be financed by charging 2 percent every month from everyone’s salary in the public and private sectors, both Saudi and foreign. Therefore, when a delay in payment occurred the affected workers would be automatically paid by the fund. Companies, whose workers were bailed out by this fund, would be expected to pay back the fund when able to. This would lessen the stress and agony that unpaid workers go through when they do not have their salaries paid on time. Saudi workers have the option of resigning and looking for other job, but foreign workers do not have that choice, and their families back home often depend on them as their only source of income.
It is not surprising that the more than 1,000 workers with extremely delayed salaries have decided to strike and some have even damaged property of their company. This heightened tension, anger and frustration are all understandable. After all, who can survive working and not being paid for six months in a row?
A major part of this problem is that the government often delays payments to construction companies working on huge projects that are very costly. That is understandable, especially now that the price of oil has tumbled on the international market. But construction companies should have emergency funds to cover such contingencies. If they cannot do so, they really should not be given large contracts by the government. In any event, the establishment of an emergency salary fund by the government is an urgent necessity to cover such dire situations as this one.
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The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
