Employee Voice Mechanisms in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: The Case of Workers’ Committees

This paper explores employee voice practices and the effectiveness of the new system of employee representation that organisations in Saudi Arabia have started forming to provide a channel for workers to voice their interests inside the workplace. It will examine to what extent workers think the existence of these committees is important in the workplace, after several years of operation, and their effectiveness in achieving their goals. The data will cover many private sector organisations, including firms that already have workers’ committees and those that are expected to follow. Also, it will focus on the viewpoints of employees about employee participation practices in their organisations. The findings show that employee voice is practiced only in large companies in the private sector. However, the majority of employees support the formation of worker’s committees in their workplaces, although, in general, there is a lack of employee awareness of such committee regulations and the existing workers’ committees are evaluated as low effective. The results also identify four predictors of effectiveness of these committees: cooperation of employers, healthy industrial relations climate, employees’ participation and mutual trust between employees and their representatives.