WITH the cost of living rising globally, including the Kingdom, the need for a minimum wage has become important for all in order to keep up with daily expenses. Businessmen have increased their prices claiming that the cost of raw materials, which is not under their control, have also been hiked and this impacts on the sale prices and selling below the target prices would put them out of business. While retail prices have been going through the roof, building owners too have increased their rents saying that all they have sought is a fair market price, citing cost of living as a reason for raising rents. In the face of such repeated price hikes every family feels the pinch each time there's price rise, skewing the family budget. The Saudis have been vocal in their objections against these price rises, stating that their salaries are not enough anymore, as these do not keep pace with these rises, leaving them in the red despite trying to meet essential expenses. The government moved in and set up a minimum wage for Saudis in the private sector at SR3,000. Even this, after an initial acceptance, was met with calls to increase it so that the recipient would be able to meet the current price increase everywhere, and a Saudi writer determined that SR6,000 would be a fair minimum wage. Then, what about expatriates working in the private sector? A very small percentage of expatriates, working in managerial positions, are paid huge salaries but the vast majority is not. It is evident there is a huge percentage of expatriates, working in the private sector, who too find it difficult to adjust their financial situation with the poor salaries they earn. An expatriate family (husband, wife and two children) generally subsists with a salary of SR4,000 or less. How can they adjust and survive with the rising cost of rent, goods, school fees and other expenses? Lately, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh signed an agreement to send skilled domestic labor to Saudi Arabia. What shocked me was that the agreement stated that the monthly salary would be SR800. I asked myself whether this salary be enough to survive in Saudi Arabia? If I assume that the domestic help is paid on time, provided three meals a day, given a weekly off, has medical insurance, and is paid to make a phone call to their family back home, I will still say that the salary is not fair. We all know that there is a good percentage of families that do not pay on time and deprive their domestic help of all the privileges mentioned above. Let's not go that far. Let's take a look at the situations of cleaning workers that are paid SR300 a month, even if they were paid on time. These poor people cannot survive on this salary in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. It is impossible to survive with such meager monthly salary. They constantly protest, demanding to be paid on time and not asking to improve their monthly salaries. I was told about cases of recruiting companies cheating some female expatriates, who are recruited to work either as nurses or as hairdressers and end up working as labor. At times they are promised SR1,200 a month for the job they were supposed to do, but they end up getting paid SR600 for a job they did not want in the first place. And they can do nothing or say anything about their circumstances till they either escape or are helped by their missions. Recently it was discussed at the Labor Ministry to increase the minimum wage for Saudis working in the private sector to SR5,000 a month in an effort to lure qualified Saudis to this sector. A minimum wage of SR5,000 or more would be just enough in today's rising prices and expenses. The call I am trying to make here is humanitarian and to the private sector. I want employers to look closely at the salaries of their expatriate employees and, since there is no minimum wage for expat workers, then they should measure the salaries with the current prices and be fair about it. Fair is what we are looking at here. Imagine an expatriate worker paid less than SR3,000 a month and asked to do too many tasks and work longer hours. The Labor Ministry has forced the minimum wage on the private sector to make sure that Saudis will not be exploited. I wish some effort were done by the private sector to look at the situation of the less fortunate and the underpaid expatriate workers and put an end to exploitation. More efforts should be done by the embassies and consulates to see that their nationals are not exploited and they should be more involved in helping their nationals and direct them to the proper authorities and hire lawyers to defend them, especially those who are severely underpaid. In my opinion, there should be a hotline that someone, who is underpaid and victimized by the company he is working for, can access and get people to investigate the case and provide justice. A hotline proved successful when people reported bad business to the Ministry of Commerce and wrong doings to the municipality. We have seen how quickly the problem was detected and dealt with. Most of all, I wish there was a minimum wage for expatriates at the private sector.
— The writer can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng
