Yet More of 2020

Several days after I posted the above blog, I received some sad news. My brother-in-law, who had been ill for some time, passed away. On the same day I learned that a colleague of mine, who had departed KSA for home a few days previously, had also passed away. Both deaths were a shock to me.

Around mid-October I got a call from a recruiter with a potential job offer. A few days later I went for an interview (British Aerospace) and was subsequently offered a position. The only problem was that the starting date was non-negotiable, and this would entail me breaking my contract with Al Jazeera. I made it clear to the recruiter that my top priority was protecting my end-of-service benefits which had been accumulating for the past nine years. He assured me that there was no way that breaking my contract with AJ could endanger my benefits.

Based on this information I accepted the offer and notified AJ that I would be leaving one week before the end of my contract. A few days later my branch manager told me that if I resigned early, I would lose one-third of my benefits. I scoffed at this until he showed me the Saudi labor law which confirmed what he had told me. 

Accordingly, I sent a link of the relevant law to the recruiter and notified him that I would not be able to start the new job on the required date. He phoned me and spent fifteen minutes trying to convince me to break my contract anyway. Eventually, when I would not relent,  he went away miffed and muttering about wasted time. Since we were looking at me losing a substantial amount of money, I wasn’t too concerned about his hurt feelings.

In due course my contract ended, and I got to spend time in my accommodation with nothing much to do. I share the accommodation with three other teachers, all of whom are waiting for the money owed to them. By this time, my iqama (residents permit) had expired, and my final exit was getting close to expiry. If both my iqama and final exit expire, I become an illegal alien and subject to all sorts of nasty legal repercussions.

A couple of days before my final exit was due to expire, I made an appointment with a lawyer to see if it was possible to get my final exit extended. This would buy me time to find another job. The appointment was for 6pm and he send me a WhatsApp location. I took an Uber to his location, which turned out to be a parking lot. I walked up and down the street for 20 minutes looking for Majid Law 

Firm without success. So, I sent him a picture of the shop I was passing to ask for clearer directions. He eventually came downstairs to find me. He explained that we could not have the meeting that night due to their offices being flooded. There was in fact a large pool of water in the street in front of their offices. I mentioned to him that it would have been courteous to have cancelled the meeting before I arrived at his location.

The following day Al Jazeera summoned me for a meeting for us to agree on the amount of money due to me, this being one-year’s unpaid salary and end-of-service benefits. I sat in reception for about six hours while they calculated (?) and eventually they presented me with a figure that was about 35,000 SR less than my calculations. I gave them the spreadsheet of my calculations and left for the day. The next day they called me in again and after another lengthy wait they presented me with an amended amount which was much closer to my amount. They told me that if I returned the following day, they would give me 50% of what they owed, in cash, and a commitment to transfer the balance to my SA account in four installments.

Unfortunately, since my iqama has expired, my bank account has been frozen, and I now sit with all this cash in my accommodation. I am hoping that I will soon be employed again and that my bank account will be revived, allowing me to deposit the cash and transfer money back to South Africa.

Twenty-Twenty Continued

This follows on from my previous blog, Twenty-Twenty.

Eventually, in June we started working again. My weekly hours were reduced from 40 hours per week to 26 hours per week. Also, my salary was reduced by 40%, apparently this being an option offered to

employers by the government due to COVID. As of this week, normal working hours have been resumed, although salary remains diminished (and unpaid). A friend and colleague, who had instituted legal proceedings against Al Jazeera Academy some time back for non-payment of salary and benefits, won his case. This after Al Jazeera failed to attend 4 hearings. They now have one month to appeal the verdict, but they really don’t have a leg to stand on. 

My previous contract ended in the last week of September. My iqama (resident’s permit) expired at the end of September. Al Jazeera Academy told me that they would renew my contract for 2 months, after which I would be given a final exit visa. With straight faces they informed me that they would pay me 60% - 70% of what they owe me before

I leave and would transfer the balance to my South African bank account in the fullness of time. I politely rejected this offer. The way it works in KSA, within a few days of a contract ending, they are obliged to pay end-of-service benefits, which in my case, after 9 years of service, is a considerable amount of money. Also, Al Jazeera has not paid me a salary since November 2019, so in total they now owe me in the region of SAR 200,000.

When Al Jazeera informed me that I would get a final exit in November, I sent an email to the MD and asked him if he would assure me that I would receive all my outstanding monies before I leave and that Al Jazeera would be willing to transfer my iqama to a new employer should I find another position. The response to that email was a phone call from HR to tell me that they would transfer my iqama if I paid them SAR 25,000 (about R110,000). 

They also very cunningly made my contract expire one day before my legal residency in KSA expires, no doubt in the hope that I would leave the country before my ESB come due. So, it seems that the only way forward is to institute legal proceeding against Al Jazeera for my outstanding monies. I understand that one may stay in the country while a legal dispute in ongoing. 

I should also mention that I share an apartment with 3 other teachers, whose contracts expired some 8 months ago, but who are hanging around waiting for their money. Al Jazeera has effectively robbed them of 8 months of their lives. 

Twenty-twenty

After my Christmas vacation I landed back in Saudi on 18 January. At the company’s request I had included two weeks unpaid leave in my annual leave because they were trying to cut costs. To that end I had also not received any salary for December. I learned later that no one else had been paid either.

Meanwhile our company had just lost a big contract and had decided to terminate around one hundred teachers who were assigned to that contract. When a company in Saudi Arabia ends an employee’s contract, the employee is entitled to an end-of-service benefit depending on their years of service. 

Daily, head-office was crowded with employees wanting the money due to them, back salary and end-of-service benefits, so that they could fly home. This process went on for weeks until eventually all had received their dues.

The company had made an offer to a colleague and me that rather than terminating us, we could each work for six months of the year until the company found some new business. This effectively meant a 50% drop in salary for both of us. We both rather reluctantly agreed to this proposition in the hope that soon they would find more business. 

My friend then left the country for six months unpaid leave with a fraction of the money due to him, getting one of the last flights out of Riyadh before lock-down. I continued working at the Academy, still without salary being paid. According to the agreement with the company, I would work till the end of August and then go home for six months while my friend would continue here.

Then in March Covid-19 arrived and on 9 March our students were told not to attend at the Academy until further notice. Teachers and admin staff, for some unknown reason, were still expected to attend

at the office daily. Due to not having received any salary since November 2019 and the cost of my six-week vacation, I found my funds running low. Accordingly, I sent an email to our MD pointing out that I had received no salary for five months and that I would appreciate some of the money owed to me being transferred into my account. He promised that they would contact me soon. I was, in fact, contacted that same evening; I was told that I was required to take unpaid leave until August, while the rest of the teachers were told to take one month’s unpaid leave. This proposition was not met with any great enthusiasm and a letter was drafted to head office, signed by all, rejecting this idea.

Then on 18 March the government declared lock-down for the country with a curfew between 1700 and 0600. In April were told to complete leave forms for unpaid leave for April. Now we are in the middle of May and a leave form for May has been requested. I have now been nearly 6 months without pay and I do not see the country opening any time soon. We are still getting around 2000 new cases daily.

Lock-down, as everyone knows, is no fun. I take a daily walk to the local shop to buy the necessities and to get some exercise. The rest of the day is spent in my room. I don’t know when we will work again, when the airport will be open again or when our company will again be a going concern. I am sharing the accommodation with one colleague so at least I am not entirely isolated.

On the plus side my potted plant, purloined from Bandos, is doing very well. Also, I have completed all the little chores that have needed doing for so long, getting a lot of reading done and my accommodation is pretty well spotless. My cooking is becoming
more adventurous and my NFS skills are being sharpened. I’ve watched some good movies on Netflix, as well as some crappy ones, and my Kindle is proving invaluable. The supermarkets are not busy so shopping is a breeze. And I am still healthy and reasonably sane.

So now we wait for the COVID-19 chaos to play out. I somehow doubt that life will ever be "normal" again.