A construction company in Makkah not only denied 37 workers their monthly salaries, it also fired them for demanding payment of back wages of more than eight consecutive months, a local newspaper reported.

Employees at the company, Saudis and foreigners, expressed their resentment and anger toward the late disbursement of their salaries for reasons unknown to them. They said this greatly affected the daily living of their families, with some of them married with children and having many financial obligations.

They also complained against the poor work environment, and the bad treatment they receive from management which prompted them to report to the Labor Office in Makkah which promised to resolve the problem, but to no avail.

They demanded that their salaries be paid as soon as possible and the company be held accountable for the physical and psychological damages incurred on them during the past months for not receiving what they are owed.

Speaking on behalf of the employees, Talal Al-Harbi said: “Our sufferings began in mid-2012 when the company started to delay our monthly salaries for more than three months, ignoring labor regulations and laws of the Kingdom. The company even circumvented the law and dismissed a number of staff without legal grounds to limit the number of employees and not be forced to transfer salaries to the bank as required by Labor Ministry regulations. First, we did not want to file complaints for fear the company would deny us what we are owed, much as it did with other employees, but then we complained to the Labor Office in Makkah in February 2015 and filed a class action suit but nobody listened to our demands.”

He said that no representative of the company attended the session to resolve the case. “The initial commission issued a decision to disburse our entitlements so we went to the Executive Court in Makkah which did not endorse the decision on the ground that the final decision must be issued by the Labor Office in Makkah but nothing has been done yet,” he said.

He noted that the company changed its name because of the many lawsuits filed against it, affirming that the owner of the company owns a villa in Al-Aziziya neighborhood an supervises more than seven companies in different work activities.

He said that denying them eight months of salary obliged them to take loans and borrow from people which they cannot repay; others want to go back to their original countries or renew their residency papers but cannot do so without having their salaries paid.

The chief executive officer of the company denied the employees’ allegations that their salaries are unpaid, and other claims concerning the work environment and management’s treatment of employees.