Some Moroccans working in Saudi Arabia are requesting that King Mohammed VI intervene to resolve the issue of their delayed salaries after not being paid for eight months.

A video posted on July 14 on YouTube by Moroccans working at Saudi Oger LTD, one of leading construction companies in Saudi Arabia and abroad based in Riyadh, shows Moroccan employees staging a sit-in in front of the company’s office and calling upon Mohammed VI to save them.

The six-minute video shows the protestors in a tough situation, asking for their rights and a solution to settle their conditions. Currently, the workers do not know if they are expelled from the company or not, since officials  have not announced any formal decision yet.

The video displays the protestors asking the King Mohammed VI and Moroccan officials to stand by their side and help them by intervening to resolve their problems, since they are no longer able to pay their residences rent  or renew the residency documents and their children’s school fees due to the delayed salaries.

“We Moroccans living in Saudi Arabia are homeless in Jeddah due to the delayed salaries for seven-eight months from [Saudi Oger LTD]. People are being threatened to be expelled from their [work] and residency. There are people who have to [pay off] their debts in their homeland, so we are addressing the King Mohammed VI to restore our rights,” one of the protestors said.

Another protestor said that the French officials and Embassy have intervened to resolve the problem for the French employees [at Saudi Oger LTD], and now they are about to resolve it.

Last June, Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News reported that 150 expatriate workers gathered in front of the company office in Jeddah to protest against their nonpayment salaries and set a fire to a number of company vehicles.

Last March, Arab News reported that the Saudi Arabia’s Labor Ministry was being punished due to the delayed nonpayment salaries to some of its employees.

The same source added that the ministry would terminate supplying some of the company’s services, such as the social security and passport affairs, as part of its punitive steps.

Source: www.moroccoworldnews.com