JEDDAH — The suffering of workers at the hands of erring sponsors has become too common a problem for people to take notice and too routine an affair to prompt many officials to act. When one digs into one case, a dozen others come to light — stories of deprivation and tragedy waiting to be told. Saudi Gazette recently reported on cases in Jubail where Indian workers are awaiting their salaries and the issuance of exit visas so that they can go home. A similar case of deprivation and distress in Jubail has come to light where 54 Asian workers (34 Indians and 20 Nepalese) have gone to the labor office because they have not been paid their salaries for the past five months by an Abqaiq-based manpower company. Their demand is similar to that of many other distressed workers: Pay us what we are owed and give us an exit visa to go home. Yet like many other erring sponsors, their company too has so far failed to give them their basic rights and to fulfill their contractual obligations. In this case, the workers approached the Indian Embassy help desk in Jubail and with their support, they filed a case in Jubail labor office on Nov. 4. The sponsor appeared at the labor office on Nov. 10 and 16, and asked for a settlement in which the company would pay two months salary and process exit visas for the workers. The desperate workers agreed to the sponsor's offer. But since then, the sponsor has not returned to the labor office. The workers have left the labor camp and are now staying in Jubail on their own. One worker's passport and another worker's iqama (residence permit) have expired and the sponsor has not taken any action to renew them, the workers claim. Embassy volunteers Shamsudheen Chettippadi, Saleem Alappuzha and Jayan Variar have visited the workers and have informed the Indian Embassy of their plight.
