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Article

30 Sep 2016

Author:
Rori Donaghy, Middle East Eye

Saudi building firm offers starving workers $1 pay settlement

Company bosses at Saudi construction firm United Seemac...offered a pay settlement of just $1 to 215 foreign staff owed nearly $1m. Angry at United Seemac's repeated broken promises about payments, the workers broke into the company's head office in Riyadh on Sunday and have slept there in protest for the past four days...After rejecting the pay offer from management, Naeem said the general manager threatened to phone police to have the workers thrown out of the office. It is a threat that carries the promise of prison, as in Saudi Arabia strikes and protests are strictly banned by law...this hasn’t deterred the desperate workers, who...had partly decided to move to the head office due to squalid living conditions in company accommodation. In a desperate effort to advance their cause, about 90 workers gathered outside the plush Riyadh home of United Seemac owner Mohammed Owaideh on 15 September...he refused to come out and instead phoned the police...[also refers to Saudi Binladin Group and Saudi Oger].

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