14 October 2004 – Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alberto G. Romulo today announced that efforts and representations by Philippine representatives both from the DFA Home Office and the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh to give more protection to the rights and welfare of Filipino workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) have gained the support of the Saudi government.  This announcement was made after the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Manila informed the DFA that the Saudi Labor Ministry has taken stronger action against companies and individual employers who mistreat foreign workers including OFWs.

Secretary Romulo said: “I was informed by the Ambassador of KSA to the Philippines, H.E. Mohammed Ameen Wali, that his government has instituted a proactive institutional response, including amendments to the Saudi Labor Law, to curb abuses perpetrated against expatriate labor by Saudi employers both domestic and industrial.  This comes as a positive boost to Philippine government efforts to engage the cooperation of countries receiving Filipino workers like Saudi Arabia to protect the rights and welfare of OFWs.”

The Secretary added, “I wish to take this opportunity to express the appreciation of the Philippine government for the concern showed by the Saudi Arabian government for the multitude of foreign workers based in the Kingdom, including the close to a million Filipinos living and working there.”

According to the information received by the DFA from the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Labor Ministry has banned companies and individual employers that maltreat foreign workers or fail to pay their salaries or end of service benefits from further recruiting foreign workers for five years.

The Saudi Council of Ministers also approved last month measures to speed up the settlement of labor disputes by giving subsidiary panels of the Supreme Commission for the Settlement of Labor Disputes the authority to issue a final verdict in all appeal cases and decide punishments according to the law.

Amendments to the Saudi Labor Law, recently made public, assigned several subsidiary panels to the Supreme Commission for the Settlement of Labor Disputes each with at least three members.  Under article 181 of the amended Labor Law, the chairman of the panel will fix the date for hearing the case presented for appeal within 15 days upon registration of the case and the panel must give its verdict on the dispute within 30 days after the first sitting.  The chairman of each committee and its members will be named by the Saudi Cabinet upon the recommendation of the Saudi Labor Minister.

The DFA was also informed that the Chairman of the Saudi Cabinet H.R.H. Crown Prince Abdullah insisted that the subsidiary panels and primary committees give their decision on labor disputes on the basis on the of the opinion of the majority of its members.  The Crown Prince added that the decision must be signed by all members and those who oppose the decisions must cite their reasons.

Recent cases cited by the report of the Saudi Embassy include four Saudi employers who failed to pay the salaries of their domestic workers and did not answer the Labor Ministry’s call to settle the dispute with the workers.  Action was also taken against a private polyclinic that refused to implement the decision of the Supreme Commission regarding the case of a female expatriate doctor.  The Labor Ministry likewise slapped a recruitment ban on six private institutions for refusing to implement the decision by the Supreme Commission to settle labor disputes and ignoring the Labor Ministry’s notices to discuss cases presented by the employees.

There are over seven million expatriate workers in KSA including over a million OFWs.  Many expatriate workers based in KSA have filed complaints against their employers for non-payment of salaries and end of service benefits.  END.