Occupational Disease

What occupational diseases are

Occupational diseases (الأمراض المهنية) are diseases that arise from the nature of the work or from exposure to substances or conditions in its environment, such as a respiratory disease that results from dust to which a worker was exposed for years. The Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) does not define them by description. It refers their identification to a schedule: Article 136 of the Labor Law provides that occupational diseases are determined according to the schedule of occupational diseases in the social insurance law. A disease is therefore occupational in the legal sense if that schedule lists it, and it is not enough that the work is its probable cause.

The term arises when an employer or a human resources officer receives a worker’s notice of a disease that the worker believes the work caused. This term is about the disease itself and what the Labor Law provides about it. The benefits that the General Organization for Social Insurance pays are covered under occupational hazards branch.

What to check first

Article 132 of the Labor Law provides that the provisions of its chapter on work injuries, which are Articles 132 to 141 of the Labor Law, do not apply to establishments that are subject to the occupational hazards branch of the social insurance law. Everything below about the employer’s obligations in that chapter, such as bearing the cost of treatment and fixing the liability of previous employers, is therefore conditional on the establishment not being of that kind. Rights should not be stated until it has been checked that the establishment is outside that branch.

We do not assess which establishments fall within the branch and which do not. That is a legal question that the social insurance law and its regulation settle, and the definition of the term does not settle it.

How an occupational disease differs from a work injury

A work injury is an event that happens at a time that can be identified, while an occupational disease can develop over a period, which makes it hard to attribute to a particular day. Article 134 of the Labor Law handles the difference with two rules: it counts occupational diseases as work injuries, and it counts the date of the first medical observation of the disease as the date of the injury. The disease thus takes the rules for injuries, and it is fixed at the date of its first medical observation, not at the date exposure began or the date symptoms appeared.

Article 135 of the Labor Law provides that a relapse, meaning a return of the condition after improvement, and any complication arising from it, count as the original injury, and the rules on aid and treatment that apply to the original injury apply to them. The rules that injuries and diseases share are set out under work injury, and the part that concerns diseases is the subject here.

What the employer bears for an occupational disease

Article 133 of the Labor Law obliges the employer, when a worker suffers a work injury or an occupational disease, to treat the worker and bear all the necessary costs, directly or indirectly. The article names hospital stay, medical examinations and laboratory tests, radiology, prosthetic devices and the cost of transport to the places of treatment. All of this is subject to Article 132 of the Labor Law, as set out above.

For compensation on permanent disability or death, Article 140 of the Labor Law refers to the compensation in Article 138 of the Labor Law. For total permanent disability or death, Article 138 of the Labor Law gives the injured worker, or the beneficiaries in the case of death, compensation equal to the actual wage (الأجر الفعلي) for three years, with a minimum that the article states. For partial permanent disability it gives the percentage of that disability, assessed under the disability schedule, applied to the compensation for total disability.

What the worker receives during treatment under Article 137 of the Labor Law

Article 137 of the Labor Law provides that a worker who is temporarily unable to work because of a work injury is entitled to financial aid equal to the full actual wage for sixty days, and then to a financial equivalent of 75% of the actual wage for the whole period that treatment takes. Because Article 134 of the Labor Law counts the occupational disease as a work injury, the natural reading is that Article 137 of the Labor Law applies to it, and that reading is ours. All of it remains subject to Article 132 of the Labor Law.

Assumed figures show the effect of the rule. Article 2 of the Labor Law counts a month as thirty days unless the employment contract or the work regulation provides otherwise, and the example assumes that neither does. A worker’s actual wage is SAR 8,000 and treatment lasts eight months. The first sixty days, which are two months, give 2 × 8,000 = SAR 16,000. The remaining six months are paid at 75%, on our reading that the 75% starts after the sixty days. That is SAR 6,000 a month, so 6 × 6,000 = SAR 36,000. The total during treatment is SAR 52,000.

If the period of treatment reaches one year, or it is medically determined that recovery is improbable and the worker’s health does not permit work, Article 137 of the Labor Law deems the injury a total disability, the contract ends, and the injury is compensated. The employer has no right to recover what it paid the injured worker during that year. In that passage Article 137 of the Labor Law does not refer to Article 138 of the Labor Law or state the amount of the compensation, and the worker is simply said to be compensated for the injury.

Article 139 of the Labor Law relieves the employer of the provisions of Articles 133, 137 and 138 of the Labor Law if one of three things is proved: the worker deliberately injured himself or herself, the injury occurred through deliberate misconduct by the worker, or the worker refused without legitimate reason to present to a doctor or to accept treatment by the doctor whom the employer assigned. What counts is proof, and in the first two cases deliberateness. Ordinary carelessness by the worker is not on the list.

Who bears the compensation when the worker had more than one employer

An occupational disease develops over a period, so the worker may have worked in the same industry for more than one employer. Article 140 of the Labor Law provides that the liability of the previous employers for whom the worker with the occupational disease worked is determined in the light of the treating physician’s medical report. They are bound to pay the compensation provided in Article 138 of the Labor Law, each in proportion to the period the worker spent in that employer’s service, on condition that the industries or professions they carry on are ones that give rise to the disease the worker contracted.

Here is an example with assumed figures, on the assumption that the disease led to total permanent disability and that the worker’s actual wage is SAR 8,000 a month. Compensation for three years is 36 × 8,000 = SAR 288,000. The worker spent four years in an industry that gives rise to the disease with a first employer, six years with a second, and ten years with a third, who is the last employer, so the total period is 20 years. The first employer’s share is 4 ÷ 20 = 20%, which is SAR 57,600, and the second employer’s share is 6 ÷ 20 = 30%, which is SAR 86,400. The two previous employers together bear SAR 144,000, and SAR 144,000 remains, which is half of the compensation. The distribution follows the period of service, not who the employer was when the disease appeared.

This calculation is our reading and not the text. Article 140 of the Labor Law speaks of previous employers only, and it does not mention the last employer or say whether the denominator is the whole period in all the causing industries, as in the worked figures. The calculation uses one actual wage of SAR 8,000 throughout to show the structure, and in Articles 138 and 140 of the Labor Law we found no provision that addresses a wage that changed between employers. In Article 140 of the Labor Law we also found no method for adding up the shares and no definition of the industries that give rise to a disease.

Periodic examination of exposed workers under Article 143 of the Labor Law

Article 143 of the Labor Law requires every employer to entrust one or more doctors with a comprehensive examination, at least once a year, of workers exposed to the possibility of contracting one of the occupational diseases specified in the schedules of occupational diseases, and to record the result in its registers and in those workers’ files. The duty is limited by category: it covers workers exposed to a disease on the schedule, not all workers. The frequency is at least once a year, so the examination may be repeated sooner, and the year is not a fixed interval.

The regulation on occupational fitness examinations and noncommunicable diseases was issued by Ministerial Decision 33232, and its preamble cites Article 143 of the Labor Law among its statutory bases. None of its articles carries wording of repeal or substitution, so it elaborates the duty and does not take its place. The certificate that results from the examination is described under health certificate.

What an employer keeps to establish liability

Article 134 of the Labor Law fixes the disease at the date of its first medical observation, and Article 140 of the Labor Law spreads liability between employers according to the period of service in the industries that give rise to the disease. An employer that keeps a record of each worker’s periods of service and the occupation held, together with the results of the periodic examinations that Article 143 of the Labor Law requires to be recorded in the registers and in the workers’ files, has something to refer to when a disease appears years later. This is our practical recommendation and not a statutory requirement, because the articles cited require the result of an examination to be recorded and do not require a particular register of occupation and period.

Prevention and reporting of occupational diseases

Article 122 of the Labor Law requires the employer to take the necessary precautions to protect workers from hazards and from diseases arising from the work. That duty and the articles next to it are described under occupational health and safety.

Article 141 of the Labor Law deals with reporting work injuries and refers the procedures to a decision of the Minister. In implementing it, the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) of the Labor Law sets out, in its Article 28, a procedure for an establishment that is not subject to the occupational hazards branch. The employer reports the injury to the competent labour office within a week of learning of it, the office considers whether it is a work injury and fixes the compensation, and whatever either party refuses goes to the labour courts. Because Article 134 of the Labor Law counts occupational diseases as work injuries, the natural reading is that this procedure covers them, and that reading is ours. The week applies only to an establishment outside the branch and must not be carried over to any other.

Which diseases the schedule treats as occupational

The Labor Law does not list diseases by name: Article 136 of the Labor Law refers to a schedule that is not in it, and the schedule itself was not among the sources we obtained. Someone who needs to check a particular disease goes to the schedule of occupational diseases in the social insurance law and does not reason from a general description. The degrees of permanent disability are fixed in the same way: Article 136 of the Labor Law refers to the disability guide schedule in the same law, and that schedule was not among the sources we obtained either.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.