The Ministry of Labor’s new plans to guarantee the rights of domestic workers and by extension, all expat workers were long overdue, but still a big step in recognizing that our guests must be treated fairly.
The program promises to ensure the rights for paid sick leave, contracts, health care, off days and a job description of their specific duties. The Labor Ministry will supervise recruitment offices and establish a commission to deal with labor disputes. The ministry will streamline the complaint process with a telephone hot line and provide services in several different languages.
These procedures target domestic workers, but it doesn’t seem farfetched that all expat workers will be included in the program. South Asian diplomats are applauding the ministry for its foresight and efforts to protect their workers, but I have yet to see details of how the ministry will get employers, especially families bringing over maids and nannies, to cooperate.
Noticeably absent from the announcement is the outline of a mechanism to enforce the program. Even if the ministry fully staffs its telephone hot line to receive complaints, the likelihood of workers seeking help to resolve long working hours, missing off-days and poor or non-existent health care is questionable. I doubt the ministry has the personnel, or even the inclination, to conduct house visits to ensure employers are honoring the contracts they signed with their servants.
It’s also a mystery as to who will make up the commission, how complaint hearings will be conducted and whether judgments against employers can be enforced. The standard operating procedure among many employers today is simply not show up at the Labor Court to answer a worker’s complaint, thus indefinitely postponing judgment and leaving a worker’s employment status and income in limbo.
Further, the Labor Ministry has not resolved the prickly issue of the sponsorship system, which needs an overhaul, including ending the distasteful practice of holding workers’ passports.
The Labor Ministry has a lot on its plate these days. Most Saudis are appreciative to last year’s aggressive efforts to send home thousands of illegal expats and force employers and employees alike to legalize workers’ status. By demanding that employers provide contracts to their workers and insisting that countries sending their citizens to Saudi Arabia have some form of training, the Labor Ministry continues to do some exemplary work.
Yet crimes against workers and, yes, the abuse of employers by running away, committing theft and conducting illegal side businesses are not uncommon. Without a transparent commitment to guaranteeing that employers and their workers play by the rules, there will be little change in the employer/employee relationship.
If the Labor Ministry is truly committed to protecting workers and employers’ rights, then it must set up a workers’ complaint commission that not only includes government employees, but private Saudi citizens and at least one individual that will represent the workers. Commission hearings also must be open to the public to foster trust in the system. This will encourage workers to come forward with complaints, reduce the number of phony allegations and send a message to employers that they will be held accountable for their treatment of their workers.
Trust will further be enhanced the day the Labor Ministry grants workers the right to possess their own passports regardless of their employment status.
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