Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — The Ministry of Labor has urged female teachers in private schools not to submit to pressure by school owners to sign amended contracts specifying smaller salaries. An official source at the Ministry of Labor said owners of private schools have no right to force Saudi female teachers to sign new contracts with privileges less than the ones defined in the initial contract. “Also, they don't have any right to threaten them with termination of services or freezing their salaries.” Affected teachers were urged to raise the matter with the officials at the local labor office. Ali Al-Swailm, a legal adviser and member of the lawyers' committee at the Saudi Council of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said, “The alteration of an original contract aimed at reducing the privileges is unlawful as it violates the labor law.” Some women teachers working for reputable private schools in Riyadh have complained that their schools have been exploiting the financial aid given by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), Al-Watan newspaper reported. They allegedly said these schools added the fund to their budget instead of increasing the teachers' salaries and that this generated between SR100,000 and SR200, 000 in extra income to these schools. The teachers emphasized that one of the private schools in Riyadh whose name was withheld by the newspaper said the school's salary scale starts at SR5,600. “But with the start of the new academic year it reduced the salary to SR3,100.” They claimed that when the teachers refused to the sign amended contracts the owner of the school threatened them with termination of their services. One of the teachers said the HRDF aid must go to teachers' salaries and not to school managements. Another teacher said they are thinking of raising the issue with the Minister of Education because of the unacceptable greed of the owners. They pointed out that these schools get a huge subsidy from the Ministry of Education. She said this is happening at a time when the owners of the schools are paying higher salaries to the foreign teachers in addition to travel allowances.
