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
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.
