Saudi Arabia: Street Cleaners Are Entitled To Our Charity
25 April 2018
By Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi
A video went viral on social media recently showing a person offering a bottle
of cold water to a street cleaner who was working in the hot sun. The man was
sitting in his car and distributing bottles of water to those passing by. The
cleaner was happy to get a bottle of cold water free of charge. However,
condition of street cleaners tells us something more like the following:
"Thanks a lot, but my needs and my rights are more than this bottle of cold
water."
When I once stopped my car to give a street cleaner a small amount of money
with which he could buy a bottle of water or a sandwich or something similar,
some people traveling in their cars or walking nearby started staring at me.
Some of them looked at me with satisfaction, while others looked angry. One of
them scolded me saying: "Damn you. People like you have turned these street
cleaners into beggars! These people have left their work of cleaning so as to
engage in beggary."
I told him: "I am not the one who is responsible for turning them into
beggars; it is those who brought them from their country under contracts,
which are like 'contracts of submissiveness'. As per these contracts, the
cleaners do not have the right to raise objections against anything.
The brokerage offices, agents and representatives of companies promised them
good pay, comfortable accommodation, delicious food and a fine working
environment before their arrival in the Kingdom. However, when they arrived,
they discovered that they had been cheated. Their salaries are meager and are
not sufficient to meet the expenses of even half of a month. As for their
accommodation, it is so crowded that large numbers of workers are huddled in
each room and needless to say their working environment is appalling.
What can one expect from a worker who feels angry and frustrated because of
this injustice? Is it surprising that he looks for other means of earning a
living, such as washing cars and other petty jobs, as well as seeking the
mercy of benevolent and compassionate people?
I think that street cleaners should be provided with alms. Those who know
their circumstances and what they have been subjected to in terms of
deception, fraud and exploitation might not hesitate to lend them a helping
hand and assist them. They should be given their rights in full and the most
important of these rights is a salary that is commensurate with the type of
work they are doing. Taking into account the difficult conditions in which
they work, they have to be given a salary that will prevent them from begging
and doing menial jobs.
They have been subjected to injustice and the salary that they earn would not
exceed the price of a dinner for two people in a posh restaurant in Jeddah or
Riyadh.
I have written about this issue before, drawing attention to a hadith in which
the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that God would support the Muslim Ummah
because of the prayers, supplications and sincerity of its weaker sections.
I have also highlighted an interview with the prominent business leader Sheikh
Saleh Kamel. In the interview, the well-known media figure Turki Al-Dakheel
asked Sheikh Kamel whether the salary given to cleaners was adequate. Sheikh
Kamel replied in the negative and added that their low salary could turn
street cleaners into criminals.
In answer to a question about the responsibility for the appalling situation,
Sheikh Kamel said: "The responsibility lies in the contractual bidding system
as well as with companies and businessmen, and I am one of them." During the
interview he promised to improve the cleaners' living conditions.
There is no doubt that companies, contractors and traders, as pointed out by
Sheikh Saleh Kamel, are responsible for what is inflicted on the cleaners in
terms of injustice and unfairness and that this eventually leads to the
deterioration of the services that they provide. It is not fair to hold the
workers responsible for this deterioration since the responsibility lies with
the companies that participate in tenders. They sign contracts worth hundreds
of millions of riyals for cleaning operations but they pay only a very small
amount of it to these workers in terms of their salaries and other allowances.
The salaries that street cleaners receive are not commensurate with the amount
of work they do and the difficulty in carrying out that work. The mayoralties
and municipalities that handle the tender procedures for implementing these
contracts also bear a part of the responsibility for this situation. These
agencies limit their responsibilities to inviting bids and signing contracts
and they do not explain the work required and the number of workers who will
be needed to implement it.
No worker should have the feeling that he is oppressed and frustrated and has
been treated in a manner similar to the conditions that exist in a camp of
forced labor.
— By Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in
Southeast Asian affairs. He can be reached at algham@hotmail.com
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