Focus: Saudi Arabia

Abstract

24 | International Union Rights | 25/2 FOCUS | TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN THE MENA COUNTRIES Saudi Arabia has no political parties, no unions, and a vast migrant workforce with limited access to labour rights Saudi Arabia Daniel Blackburn is the Director of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights in London and Editor of International Union Rights journal. He is also the Editor of the reference book Trade Unions of the World (7th edition, 2016) Saudi Arabia has a poor reputation for labour rights, and rightly so. It has no form of open political process, nor political parties. In 2017 a UN Special Rapporteur observed that ‘no NGOs in Saudi Arabia … are allowed to work on human rights’. There are also no trade unions, just a tame system of ‘workers committees’, and few of these seem to exist. Migrant workers, and domestic workers, face serious barriers to the exercise of their rights. Given that migrants constitute the majority of the workforce, the denial of rights to this group is a serious and broad problem. Neither is Saudi Arabia well integrated into the international human rights system. It has not ratified either of the two key UN instruments on human rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘CESCR’) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘CCPR’). Neither has the Kingdom ratified ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948), nor ILO Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (1949). However, Saudi Arabia has been a member of the International Labour Organisation (‘ILO’) since 1976 and it has ratified 16 ILO Conventions, including six of the eight core Conventions. Somewhat improbably, Saudi Arabia currently holds the position of deputy member of the ILO Governing Body. Freedom of association The Basic Law contains no explicit recognition or protection for the rights of freedom of association or of assembly. Article 26 emphasises a commitment to the protection of human rights, but it does not specify what these rights are, and adds that rights are protected only so far as they are ‘in accordance with Sharia’. The reality is that without explicit recognition and protection under domestic law anyone exercising these rights is at risk of repression, prosecution, and serious criminal penalties. Amnesty International has said that the ‘Saudi Arabian authorities are consistently abusing the country’s vague laws to deprive human rights defenders and others of their liberty’1. Despite a recent NGO law, the work of most NGOs remains within traditional confines of ‘charity’, and ‘no NGOs in Saudi Arabia … are allowed to work on human rights’2. There are no unions, but law reforms in 2001 created a role for workers’ committees3. ICTUR has been unable to obtain a reliable translation of these regulations (even the ILO only indicates that it has an ‘unofficial French translation’4, and even this is not available online), but a number of secondary sources agree that the regulations establish a right to form these organisations only in large enterprises that employ more than 100 Saudi citizens as workers. Their role is said to be limited to suggesting recommendations on working conditions, health and safety standards, and productivity5. These organisations apparently can represent migrant workers6, but it is unclear whether this happens in practice. Foreign workers are not, according to ITUC, allowed to serve on the executive of the workers’ committees7. The government must approve the statutes and membership of the workers’ committees, and the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs as well as the company management have the right to send a representative to the committee meetings. The minutes of the meetings must also be submitted to management and then passed on to the Minister. Finally, public demonstrations of a political nature are prohibited, and the Ministry can dissolve a workers’ committee if it violates regulations or threatens public security. In practice, very few workers’ committees have been established, and those that do exist play a tame role. There is no legal framework for collective bargaining, and hence no real industrial relations system, other than a rigid conciliation and arbitration system, that brings disputes between workers and employers into its...