Saudi Arabia has sentenced a group of foreign workers who protested against unpaid wages early last year to 300 lashes and four months imprisonment, exacerbating the already dismal plight of temporary foreign workers in the kingdom.
The men, employed by the construction conglomerates Binladin Group and Saudi Oger, had been waiting for months to be paid. Video footage from their protest in April shows them angrily setting ablaze several buses that belonged to their employers.
[...] Binladen Group, founded by the father of deceased al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and Saudi Oger, led by Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri, both claimed they were unable to pay employees after a plunge in oil revenues.
The companies say they completed payment to 70,000 sacked employees at the end of 2016 and that workers who are still with the company would be receiving payments soon.
Source: teleSUR
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:27PM
While middle-eastern governments do use the west as a boogeyman to distract the populace from their own failings, to blame oil prices on the west is a real stretch since KSA deliberately engaged in a price-war. That linkage doesn't seem to be happening here either, you are imputing meaning to otherwise generic corporate deflection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @05:45PM
It's the classic US model - if the business makes money, the rich take the profits. If there's no money, dump the losses on the suckers.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday January 08 2017, @07:52PM
Invisible hand!