Company Gets Migrant Worker to Work As Portable ‘Hand Sanitiser’ in Office; Netizens See it As ‘Slavery’

Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or more commonly known as Saudi Aramco, is one of the largest companies in the world based on revenue, with the company earning USD$355.9 billion in 2018. The company employs 76,000 people, and has the world’s second-largest proven crude oil reserves at more than 270 billion barrels.

Based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, it’s owned primarily by the Government of Saudi Arabia.

For a company that big, you’d think that they treat their employees well.

Apparently not.

Human Hand Sanitiser in Saudi Aramco Office

Maybe the folks were so obsessed with oil that they forgot social media exists.

Over in Saudi Arabia, as of time of writing, there have been 45 confirmed COVID-19 cases. And just like many other countries, they reported their first case this month, with a gradual increase of a few new cases daily until yesterday (12 March 2020), when a whopping 24 new cases were reported.

Suffice to say, as the virus slipped in to the country, panic and fear followed.

But someone in Saudi Aramco took it to a whole new level with this:

Lest you can’t tell, it’s a migrant worker, allegedly an Indian employee, being dressed up as a human hand sanitizer.

Seeing this, there should be a few questions in your mind:

1. Why can’t they just buy disinfectants for all employees?
2. Why not just install hand sanitisers?
3. Where can I buy the costume? Asking for a friend

Needless to say, images of the poor guy went viral on Twitter:

People were calling the act disgusting, racist and even compared it to modern slavery.

Now, maybe this is joke? After all, the best medicine is laughter. And that employee could be a director of a department spreading a message.

No.

Saudi Aramco Responds

With the entire fiasco being viral in Twitter, the oil company went to Twitter to respond as well.

إشارة إلى الصور المتداولة في وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لأحد الزملاء مرتدياً ما يشبه عبوة للتعقيم في أحد مرافقها، تود #أرامكو السعودية أن تعرب عن استيائها الشديد من هذا التصرف المسيء الذي أريد به التأكيد على أهمية التعقيم، دون أخذ موافقة من الجهة المعنية بالشركة.

— أرامكو (@Saudi_Aramco) March 10, 2020

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The company didn’t approve of this act and apologised for this “abusive behaviour”. Also, it wasn’t done with the company’s approval. They have immediately stopped this and would take measures to ensure that it won’t happen again.

Very PR-ish response, but at least now we know this: it wasn’t a joke, and someone in that company definitely should learn a lesson about basic respect.