About 400 engineers and employees working on the Haramain train project have gone on strike following delays of up to three months in salary disbursement by the company supervising the project.

Officials from the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) rushed to the site to meet employees earlier this week. The supervisor at the site assured officials that the salaries would be paid within three days.

Jabarah Al-Suraiseri, transport minister and chairman of the SRO, said the situation would be handled swiftly and prevented from reoccurring.

Witnesses of the incident said the workers gathered at the project site and began breaking windows and damaging cars, besides ransacking offices.

Supervisors on the scene threatened to call the police.

A project source said most of the 400-odd workers were labor law violators whose residency permits had expired as long as a year ago.

The same company is involved in the new airport project and the development of the convention palace in Jeddah, where a similar situation is said to exist. The company has about 4,000 workers on its payroll.

An engineer working on the project, who requested anonymity, said the supervisors had been paid by the ministry but had not disbursed the salaries to the workers.

First Lt. Nawaf Al-Bouq, spokesman of the Jeddah police, said the problem was an internal affair.




The Royal Court recently gave directions to five ministries to conduct field studies on strikes, especially strikes instigated by foreign workers at cleaning institutions. The Ministries of Interior, Finance, Rural Affairs, Health and Labor are all involved in such matters.