Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — The Ministry of Labor has set a 10-week timetable to resolve disputes between workers and their employers. The new program, to be launched after the Eid Al-Adha holidays, aims to cut down the number of cases piled up before various labor committees under the ministry, Al-Watan daily reported on Saturday. A meeting of ministry officials last week resulted in the creation of a mechanism to address the issue. The new mechanism calls for a three-step process. As a first step, mediation efforts will be made to resolve a problem amicably. If the dispute cannot be resolved through mediation within two weeks, it will be referred to a preliminary committee, which will have no more than four weeks to review the case and issue a judgment. If a solution is still not attainable, the case will be referred to the supreme committee, which will come out with a final ruling in the case within four weeks. Statistics indicate that there were 12,067 cases with the preliminary labor committees in 2012. The disputes involved more than SR270 million. Out of these cases, only 1,417 cases were solved amicably. Saudi workers accounted for about 5,000 cases and the rest involved expatriate workers. Around 61 percent of the cases were solved, while decisions in 3,123 cases were challenged by the litigants.
