MAKKAH: A number of former employees at a well-known hotel in Makkah said that the management of the hotel dismissed more than 50 Saudi employees recently, while many others were forced to resign without any legal grounds, a local newspaper reported.

They accused the management, operated by expatriates, of exerting excessive pressure on the Saudi employees to marginalize their work environment and alienate them. They were subsequently replaced by cheaper expatriate workers.

The public relations officer at the hotel and his counterpart at the Labor Office refused to communicate with the newspaper on the issue and did not comment on the statements of the employees. The fired employees said they they have been severely harmed by the practices of the hotel management.

The workers alleged the hotel management had committed several labor violations against them as employees, including lying about the high ratio of foreign workers at the hotel (an issue which the management sought to cover up at the time of every inspection campaign), the non-application of the required ratio of Saudization of the jobs, and the circumvention of the regulations by employing non-Saudis in administrative jobs.

"We all noticed that the management of the hotel exerted high levels of pressure on Saudi employees. They arbitrarily replaced Saudis with expatriates of a similar nationality of their own, without justification. The only managerial jobs that Saudis have at the moment are the head of security and the human resources director," said Sultan Al-Sahbani, a former employee of the hotel.

He added: "As the former manager of the front office, I warned the officials during one meeting that the Saudi employees are experiencing inappropriate treatment and this is certainly a form of improper behavior against them. But my complaints went in vain, and they all ignored my comments. Somebody even accused me of lying." He said that he was therefore forced to resign shortly afterward.

Hatem Fouad, former Deputy Manager of the front office, said that the dismissals and resignation cases are the result of the accumulative effects of the marginalization of Saudi employees and the diminishing of their efforts, in addition to not giving them annual raises or bonuses.