Saudi employer left 45 in the lurch

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Forty-five Asian workers, mainly from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, have been deprived of their dues by a Saudi Arabian company and are stranded in the kingdom now without any money or legal papers.

The workers have been passing their days in hunger and negligence for the last seven months.

A total of 55 workers, recruited by the Nukhba House of Medical Services, were left stranded in Riyadh after the company flouted the terms of their contracts, the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News reported yesterday.

One of the stranded, Abid Lateef Khan, said that 10 from the group have been able to manage to leave the country since then.

Another worker said, “The remaining workers are left hungry and are suffering from depression.”

The groups’ troubles began when the company refused to release the workers when their job contracts expired in December 2006. The company refused to let them go till they had found replacements for these posts.

The 55 men had to work an extra year without any contract in place and were not paid regularly for it either. In January this year, Nukhba moved the 55 workers to a different apartment in Riyadh after replacing them with new staff.

They have been living in miserable conditions since, often going hungry, as they have little or no money left.

The workers risk arrest and deportation if they even venture out of their house now because the company has not renewed the workers’ residency permits. Only a handful of them have residency papers.

In a complaint lodged at the Saudi Ministry of Labour, the workers alleged that the company forced them to work an extra year after their contracts expired, failed to pay for their tickets home, retained up to seven months’ of wages from them and did not approve exit visas for them.

The workers demanded payment of their dues and plane tickets to return home in addition to other end-of-service entitlements under the law from the company.

Labour Ministry officials waited for two weeks for a response from the company. When the it failed to reply, the ministry sent the workers to the local labour court.

The court has scheduled proceedings for July, leaving the workers without any legal status, and without any money.

Gagan Kumar Singh, who has not been paid for six whole months now said, “The problems are just compounding and no government agency is coming to our rescue.”

Authorities in Riyadh have instructed local police to expedite the case.

Gagan Kumar said most of the stranded workers’ residence permits have expired.

“Despite the risk of arrest, we went to the Sulaimaniya police station again, but nothing came out of it,” another worker said.

Arab News reported that it tried to contact Nukhba management, but the company is not answering any phone calls.

Medical professionals at Nukhba were earning between US$ 350 and US$ 400 a month. The cleaners were earning less than US$ 100.

This is not the first time that the Nukhba House is in the news for mistreatment of its employees. The company was earlier blacklisted for their failure to honour terms contract terms in another case.

In another recent case, the company was accused of forcefully holding back a number of nurses in their employment after the expiry of their contracts, without renewing them, Arab News reported.

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