Harrowing experience for expats with pending labor cases By Joe Avance?a It is a known fact that expatriate workers who have pending labor cases in Saudi labor courts suffer most during the period they are waiting for the final decision of their case. These foreign workers, already without means to support themselves and often penniless after being thrown out from their jobs, have to wait for months, sometimes couple of years, before the court decisions are handed down. James Leslie Braun, a Canadian English teacher, was terminated from his teaching job at a local university in Al-Ahsa. He filed a labor case against his employer challenging the termination and claiming that his dismissal was illegal. “I have been without salary for over 13 months. I have been surviving with occasional pocket money given by friends, the local kabsa restaurant gives me food now and then, but basically I have been living hand to mouth,” Braun said. “There have been occasions I have gone without food for weeks. During the last Ramadan, my daily sustenance was Iftar every evening at a local mosque,” he added. Al-Shabaka Training Establishment, the company that hired Braun to work as an English teacher terminated his services on the ground of professional misconduct. Mohammad S. Al-Saadoun, owner of Al-Shabaka Training Establishment, in his written notice dated Nov. 30, 2009, terminating the services of Braun said that Braun's “professional behavior and conduct have been unsatisfactory.” “Our office will inform you about financial and travel arrangements,” the written notice of termination further stated. Although the lower court in Al-Hofuf where the case was heard decided in his favor, ruling that the termination was illegal, he continues to suffer because the decision of the lower court was appealed by his employer and is now pending at the higher labor court in Riyadh. The long period of waiting for the final judgment has affected him physically and mentally. “Since I received a notice on Nov. 30, 2008 informing me that my services were no longer required, my suffering – the torment and distress – started, affecting me psychologically and physically,” Braun said. Braun, who was contracted as an English language instructor at the Al-Ahsa campus of the local university, said that since his termination from his job up to the present he has gone through an agonizing experience. According to the English teacher, he was hospitalized twice - two weeks in June and two weeks in September - due to mental collapse. “The hospital where I was confined did not charge me for humanitarian reason and because a Good Samaritan, a female medical staff at the hospital, interceded and pleaded on my behalf. Her husband has since become a dear friend,” Braun said. Braun said he has written and appealed to higher Saudi authorities regarding his case. “I felt depressed and dejected because I have not received straight answers that should have addressed my grievances and my many observations regarding the systems of outsourcing and recruitment of foreign teachers because I am a victim of this abysmal system,” he said. He is hoping that the judgment handed down by the lower court in April last year stipulating that his employers must pay his full salary until the end of his contract in June 2009 amounting to SR120,000 will be upheld by the higher court, which is scheduled to hear the case in Jan. 24. Cases of expatriate workers facing host of problems - from financial, physical and psychological - as a result of delaying tactics by employers and of prolong court proceedings are common. Welfare officers of foreign embassies often advise their nationals with labor problems to seek reconciliation with their employers. “It is sensible that workers with labor dispute with their employers seek settlement and an amicable resolution because foreign embassies do realize the difficulties their nationals encounter once a case is filed until the lengthy period of final court decision,” a senior welfare officer of an Asian country said. Sheikh Mekhlef Bin Daham Al-Shammary, a human rights advocate and representative of the Saudi Human Rights Commission in the Eastern Province, who has handled labor disputes involving expatriate workers, also counsels foreign workers asking his help to first seek out avenues for reconciliation with their employers. “Amicable settlement is the first option, considering the bureaucratic system, the red tapes, lengthy and troublesome procedures that saddle our labor courts,” he said.
