Word: saudi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...wake of such other manifestations of civilization as oil rigs, Cadillacs, air-conditioning units and Coca-Cola, labor strife came last week to Saudi Arabia. The country's first real labor disturbance caught the government completely unprepared, for 73-year-old King Ibn Saud had never got around to making any law for or against strikes, while the devisers of the Moslem Sharia (sacred law) had never anticipated a Taft-Hartley world...
...Saudi Arabia's delayed awakening began in August when nine employees marched into Aramco (the Arabian American Oil Co., biggest enterprise in the land) demanding "justice" for all the company's 15,000 native workers. After its first surprise, the U.S.-owned oil company agreed to hear the spokesmen (all of them, it turned out, educated at Aramco expense, two in the U.S.). Their demands: a living allowance of $240 monthly added on to their $42 minimum wage, "living conditions just like American employees," air conditioning for all Saudi workers' homes, substantial reductions in foreign personnel...
...quickly as Aramco tried to settle one disputed issue, the leaders raised another. They seemed less interested in winning gains than fomenting trouble. There was good reason to believe they were influenced by Communists, some of whose literature had recently been seized by Saudi police. Then to Aramco's relief, the government stepped in, took over the negotiations. At first, the Arabian negotiators listened openmouthed as the labor leaders attacked the "backward" government, then, recovering, they clapped the agitators in jail...
Late in August three Americans trespassed in the holy city of Mecca, forbidden to infidels. The Americans-Walter Coughlan, Antone Silva and Clyde Jackson-were employees of International Bechtel, a U.S. firm doing construction work in Saudi Arabia. Since they were not newcomers in the country, it seemed clear that they had foolishly driven their car to Mecca out of a sense of adventure, not because they had lost their way or were ignorant of a centuries-old taboo...
...they got past a guarded barrier ten miles out of Mecca, no one knew, but once inside the holy city, they escaped detection for a while in the dense throngs of pilgrims. When they tried to find their way out to Jidda, they were overheard speaking English, and Saudi soldiers pounced. The trespassers were taken to Jidda and thrown into a fly-infested jail. There they still languished last week. They had been fined about $1,200 each and sentenced to six months...