Saudi Gazette Motorists across the Kingdom have become accustomed to the sight of Saher cameras and vehicles. They have began to drive carefully in order to avoid getting caught in traffic violations, which results in heavy fines. Although yesterday, motorists in the Asir region were surprised by the sudden disappearance of Saher vehicles. Rather than being stationed on roads, the Saher vehicles were parked outside their company premises in Abha. Practically all monitoring vehicles were missing from their usual spots on roads because almost 50 Saher employees went on strike and refused to show up for work. Delay in receiving salaries from their employers was their main reason for taking such a step. One disgruntled employee told Al-Watan daily, “The sixth day of Feb. has already come and gone and we were still not paid for working during the month of January. The only choice we had was to stop working in order to draw the administration's attention so that they can solve our problem. The hardworking employees are upset and they claim that the company responsible for conducting Saher's operations neglects the needs of its employees, does not give any incentives, and fails to pay them their monthly salaries on time. The company obtains substantial economic gains daily and even then it regularly postpones paying its employees on time. In addition, the company had requested its employees to work overtime for long hours and they were promised fair compensation for their extra work. Again, employees furiously report that they never received the payments they were promised for working overtime. According to the Director of traffic police in the region, Brig.Saeed Al-Mezhar, the strike lasted for only a few hours last afternoon and that the delay in payment of salaries was due to a technical problem in one of the banks that the company deals with to cash their employees' salaries. He assured the public that all employees will very soon be back at work, and Saher vehicles will return to safeguard the roads to help save lives. __
