Owners of women's accessory shops are required to submit bank documents of payment of salaries to their female workers, Dr. Fahd Al-Tekhaifi, Assistant Undersecretary for Development in the Ministry of Labor has said. The documents, he said, would prove whether the owners have paid female workers their salaries on time or not, Al-Watan Arabic daily reported Sunday. The ministry has resorted to the procedure following complaints from some female workers who quit their jobs because of non-payment of their wages on time. They also complained of long working hours, Dr. Al-Tekhaifi pointed out. “We'll prevent any form of discrimination on the basis of wages of female workers,” he said. Dr. Al-Tekhaifi advised female workers finding their employers in breach of any contractual obligations to move the Labor Office. Shop owners who violate contractual obligations will be subject to penalties, he warned. “The initial indications of employing female workers in women's accessory shops are positive. There are 4,332 shops which have enforced the decision and replaced their non-Saudi workers with Saudi female ones,” he said. Female workers, he said, are required to work for eight hours a day. Owners can hire two female workers on part-time basis because of the two-shift system in their outlets. But these two workers will be counted as one for Saudization purposes, Dr. Al-Tekhaifi explained. During its field tour, the newspaper found that a large number of female workers in Jeddah complained about delay in payment of their salaries. They also spoke about how some shop owners have linked their wages to the quantity of goods sold by them. Some owners are even forcing female workers to work till midnight without considering the their safety. Some female workers were quoted by the newspaper as saying that the owners are willfully making their lives difficult because of the ministry's insistence on replacing their male workers with female ones. They want female workers to get sick and tired and leave their jobs so that they can prove to the Ministry of Labor that the problem lies in female workers and not in shop owners. Several female workers said that some of their colleagues left the job one week after being hired because they had not been paid their salaries or they were paid less amount than agreed upon in the contract. These workers have filed complaints at Labor Office but nothing has been done so far as the procedure is cumbersome and takes a long time to resolve. To avoid these complicated procedures, some female workers have decided to quit and search for a job at another shop whose owner can protect their rights and pay them their salaries on time.
