Safety Committee

What a safety committee is

A safety committee (لجنة السلامة), also called a health and safety committee, is a standing internal body that an establishment forms to follow up the application of its duties to prevent work hazards, to review accidents and near misses, and to propose measures that remove a hazard at its source.

The description is organisational, not statutory. In the sources we reviewed, namely the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل), its Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) and the model work regulation (النموذج الموحّد) annexed to it, we found no provision that requires an establishment to form a safety committee, and none that sets its composition, the number of its members or a number of workers at which it becomes required.

Where a safety committee requirement could sit, and why its absence cannot be inferred

Article 121 of the Labor Law requires the employer to keep the establishment in a healthy and clean state, to light it and to secure water fit for drinking and washing. It then refers the other rules of protection, safety and occupational health, with their procedures and levels, to a decision of the Minister. The detailed level of the requirements is therefore not in the Law at all, and that decision is where a requirement of this kind would naturally be found if one exists. We did not locate that decision in the sources we reviewed.

The two statements differ, and the difference can be overlooked: not having located the decision is not the same as there being no decision. The referral stands in the text. A reader who takes the absence of a committee provision in the Law as permission to leave the whole matter aside has read the referral backwards. The duties themselves are those of occupational safety and health, which is a separate term.

How the abuse investigation committee differs from a safety committee

The model work regulation is the model in line with which establishments prepare their work regulations. Article 55 of the model work regulation requires the establishment, when a complaint or report of abuse (الإيذاء) is submitted, to form a committee by a decision of the competent official. The committee investigates the abuse, examines the evidence and recommends the appropriate disciplinary penalty for anyone whose guilt is established, and the provision sets this within five working days of receiving the complaint or report.

That committee is formed in response to a particular complaint or report, and its subject is conduct, not a physical hazard. It is therefore not called a safety committee, and a safety committee is not given its work. Workplace harassment and the internal investigation it can lead to are separate terms.

What a safety committee rests on when an establishment forms one

An establishment that forms a safety committee does so by an internal decision. The committee’s remit therefore starts from the duties that already stand in the text, not from duties the establishment invents:

• Following up the posted instructions. Article 122 of the Labor Law requires the employer to post, in a visible place in the establishment, the instructions on the safety of the work and of the workers, in Arabic and, where needed, in any other language the workers understand. Posting is also a practical condition for something else. An employer that never posted the instructions cannot rely on the second paragraph of Article 80 of the Labor Law, which allows dismissal without an award, notice or compensation for deliberately failing to observe safety instructions posted in a visible place, after a written warning and after the worker has been given the opportunity to state their objections. The conditions of that provision are set out in our guide to dismissal without an award under Articles 80 and 81 of the Labor Law.
• Following up training and protective equipment. Article 123 of the Labor Law requires the employer, before the worker starts work, to inform the worker of the hazards of their occupation and oblige them to use the protective means prescribed for it. In a further sentence with no timing qualifier, it requires the employer to provide suitable personal protective equipment for the workers and to train them in its use. The last sentence of Article 122 of the Labor Law is examined alongside it: the employer may not charge workers, or deduct from their wages, any sum for providing this protection.
• Reviewing accidents. It means examining what each accident and near miss shows. Measuring the work injury rate and assessing occupational risk are separate terms, and the statutory treatment of a work injury has its own sources.
• Following up hazardous work. It includes the occupations that Article 131 bis of the Labor Law refers to a ministerial decision, discussed below, and work exposed to heat, which is a separate term.

The daily implementation between the committee’s meetings can rest with an occupational safety and health officer, which is a separate role.

Where the Labor Law comes closest to safety committee work: major hazard establishments

The closest the Labor Law comes to collective work at establishment level is the second section (الفصل الثاني) of Part Eight (الباب الثامن), Articles 127 to 131 bis of the Labor Law, on the prevention of major industrial accidents. It does not require a committee, but it does require the establishment to classify itself, in coordination with the Ministry. The section is set out in our guide to major hazard establishments and the prevention of major industrial accidents.

Article 127 of the Labor Law confines the section to major hazard establishments (المنشآت ذات المخاطر الكبرى). Article 128 of the Labor Law defines three terms:

• Major hazard establishment. It is an establishment that, permanently or temporarily, produces, processes, disposes of, handles, uses or stores one or more hazardous substances, or categories of them, in quantities exceeding the permitted standards, where exceeding them places the establishment in the major hazard class.
• Hazardous substance. It is any substance or mixture of substances that is hazardous by virtue of its chemical, physical or toxic properties, alone or in combination with others.
• Major accident. It is any sudden accident, such as a major leak, a fire or an explosion, in the course of an activity inside a major hazard establishment, involving one or more hazardous substances and leading to a greater danger to workers, the public or the environment, whether immediately or in the longer term.

The words “permanently or temporarily” in the first definition prevent an establishment from placing itself outside it on the ground that its storage is occasional. The reference to the longer term in the definition of a major accident prevents a review from being confined to the effect visible on the day of the incident.

The next three provisions divide the work between two parties:

• Article 129 of the Labor Law. The Ministry sets the criteria (الضوابط) for identifying major hazard establishments, on the basis of a list of hazardous substances, or of categories of them, or both.
• Article 130 of the Labor Law. Employers must determine the status of their establishments against those criteria, in coordination with the Ministry. Classification is therefore not a closed internal judgement.
• Article 131 of the Labor Law. The Minister issues the regulations and decisions covering the arrangements required at establishment level to prevent major hazards, employers’ duties in that regard, the arrangements for protecting the public and the environment outside each major hazard site, workers’ rights and duties, and the other measures needed to prevent major accidents, reduce the risk of their occurrence and limit their effects.

A further provision, Article 131 bis of the Labor Law, added by Royal Decree M/5 dated 7/1/1442H, provides that the Minister determines by decision the occupations and work that are hazardous or harmful, or liable to expose the worker to unusual hazards or harm. The same decision determines the categories that are prohibited, permanently or temporarily, from being employed in them, or that may be employed in them only on special conditions, including the extent of the need to set working hours for any of those categories, consistently with the Kingdom’s relevant obligations under international conventions. We did not locate those decisions in the sources we reviewed, so no particular occupation or category is drawn from them.

The pattern of Article 121 of the Labor Law recurs: the Law sets the structure and refers the detail to a decision. A safety committee that an establishment forms within this scope would therefore start by studying the Ministry’s criteria and determining the establishment’s status against them, not by holding periodic meetings with no reference point.

Duties that need no safety committee but can be reviewed by one

• The first aid cabinet. Article 142 of the Labor Law requires the employer to prepare one or more first aid cabinets, stocked with the medicines and other items that primary first aid requires. It leaves to the Implementing Regulation their contents, their number, the quantities of medicine, the arrangements for keeping them and the conditions and level of the person giving first aid. Article 29 of the Implementing Regulation carries out that provision with a table that sets the contents in quantities. The table is to be taken from the Implementing Regulation itself and is not reproduced in the definition, so advice to an establishment on what to stock that does not rest on that table has no basis.
• The periodic medical examination. Article 143 of the Labor Law requires the employer to entrust one or more doctors with a comprehensive examination, at least once a year, of workers exposed to the risk of one of the occupational diseases listed in the schedules of the social insurance system (نظام التأمينات الاجتماعية). The employer must record the result in its registers and in those workers’ files. The duty is therefore an examination and a record in two places, and an employer that examines without recording has met only half of it.
• Health care. Article 144 of the Labor Law requires the employer to provide its workers with preventive and curative health care to the standards the Minister determines, having regard to what the cooperative health insurance system (نظام الضمان الصحي التعاوني) provides. The standard is again referred to a decision, which we did not locate, so no obligation to provide a particular service is derived from it.

What forming a safety committee does not do

• It does not move the duty away from the employer. Articles 121 to 123, 125 and 126 of the Labor Law address the employer. Article 124 of the Labor Law addresses the worker, who must use and preserve the protective means, carry out the instructions laid down to protect their health, and refrain from any act or omission that prevents those instructions being carried out or that misuses or disables the protective means. A committee is an internal arrangement for carrying out what the employer owes, not a party that takes the employer’s place in the text.
• It is not compliance in itself. Oversight of how the Labor Law is applied in establishments is the function of labour inspection, set out in our guide to labour inspection under the Saudi Labor Law.
• It does not replace removing the hazard. The procedural guide to the occupational fitness examinations regulation (لائحة فحوصات اللياقة المهنية, Ministerial Decision No. 33232) states the rule in terms: establishments are prohibited from using the occupational fitness examination as a substitute for applying preventive controls, because the examination is a means of monitoring, not of prevention. The same reasoning extends to a committee. A meeting that documents a hazard without removing it has documented the hazard and nothing more.

Safety committee reference points that rest on decisions we did not locate

Several provisions in this part of the Labor Law end in a decision of the Minister or in criteria set by the Ministry. We located none of them, so no rule is built on them:

• Article 121 of the Labor Law, on the rules of protection, safety and occupational health, with their procedures and levels;
• Article 129 of the Labor Law, on the criteria for identifying major hazard establishments and the list of hazardous substances;
• Article 131 of the Labor Law and Article 131 bis of the Labor Law, on the arrangements for preventing major hazards, and on hazardous occupations and the categories barred from them;
• Article 144 of the Labor Law, on the standards of health care.

That describes our sources; it is not a finding that the decisions have not been issued. None of these provisions is a 2025 change. The consolidated text of the Labor Law published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, and the Ministry’s table of the amendments, both record that Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H amended Article 151 and no other Article between Articles 121 and 167 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Articles 121 to 148 of the Labor Law, and it did not amend Article 80 of the Labor Law.

Before an internal safety committee regulation is written

An establishment that wants a specific binding requirement starts from the activity it carries on, then consults the ministerial decisions issued on occupational safety and health at their source. Model committee structures that circulate without a decision number or a date are not a sound basis for an obligation.

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

Related terms

• Hazard Pay
• Job Autonomy
• Quality Circle
• Self Managed Team
• Suggestion System