Know Your Labor Rights!
By Hassan Elhais

This short article shall elaborate on the tasks employer's concerning registration of staff members and the legal rights of workers after the termination of their labor contracts in the UAE.

In general terms, all expatriate employees that wish to work in the UAE must be employed by a suitably accredited and accepted company and has to be released with an access permit for employment purposes, a labor card (work license) and a home visa.

Some Staff members do unknown their legal rights upon the termination of their employment agreement, so the concern has to be carefully thought about.

Comply with the Legislation

Work relations in the private sector in the UAE are regulated and controlled by Federal Law No. 8 on Guideline of Labor Relations for the year 1980. Utilizing foreign workers in the UAE involves following certain enrollment procedures such as residence visa. If an employee doesn't have job authorization and/or company sponsorship, write-up 13 of the Labor Legislation obliges the employer utilizing an immigrant to obtain authorization and/or company sponsorship from the Ministry of Labor. The Labor Law is safety of staff members generally and supersedes conflicting contractual arrangements concurred under an additional territory, unless they are advantageous to the employee. Additionally, this regulation applies to the Free Zones taking into consideration that there is no job authorization.

Probation Duration and 7 civil liberties

It is very important to note that any type of provision of the labor contract is void if it either opposes the UAE labor legislation or conflicts with the public rate of interest. These arrangements could connect to facility of probation period, gratuity, notification period, wage or to any charge applied to the employee. According to the Federal Law No. 8 of the year 1980 probation period could not go beyond 6 month.

The Labor Legislation supplies the Workers with mainly 7 rights that have to be complied with by the employer after the discontinuation of the labor contract.

According to the Labor Legislation, an employee ending his contract has rights to:

Get his/her unpaid wage
Obtain charges for extra hours of work
Have annual leave
Obtain gratuity (21 days fundamental commission for every year of the first five years of solution and 1 month any kind of year after.).
Obtain an air ticket.
Notification period wage.
Get a compensation for unreasonable dismissal (with maximum three months, however this period can be a lot more if it is not pointed out in the agreement).

In addition to these seven legal rights, there could be added civil liberties which are consisted of in the contract such as commission and perks.

Nonetheless, if the termination takes place within the probation duration, which can be 6 months or much less depending upon contract, the employee will not have ideal to assert the legal rights pointed out above. He will just be qualified to unpaid wage, fees for added hours of work and air ticket. The bar time on labor issues for Dubai based firms is 1 year from the minute of discontinuation of the labor contract.

Ways to assert the civil liberties?

It is significant that in order for an employee to be able to request UAE Labor Authorities pertaining to any kind of lawful matter, he/she should have or had a job approval and/or company sponsorship. Or else UAE Labor Authorities will not handle an issue.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Matters (the Ministry) is the main body in charge of the guideline of manpower employment and it plays a substantial role in clearing up labor differences between companies and staff members. It ought to be kept in mind that labor conflicts must originally be submitted to the Labor Department of the Ministry for friendly negotiation if the company is onshore.

The same guideline is applicable in the Free Zones. However, Free Areas have their very own Legal Division where attorneys should not participate in. Consequently before filing a case to the Court, one must take a letter of reply from Free Zone Legal Department for his case.

In a situation if an employee benefits Governmental Entity, he should put on the ruler office first and they need to release Non-Objection Certificate (NOC).

The application is after that handed to the worried labor authority, that will arrange a meeting in between the employee and the employer. The objective of such meeting is ahead to the negotiation of the problem.

One may question the factors of undergoing the above stated actions. Indeed, it is just one of one of the most crucial demands of Labor Code. Applying via these labor authorities help individuals to work out a high price of problems between employers and employees. Additionally, such procedures conserve time and decrease the variety of situations before the courts. Nonetheless the lawyers are not able to participate in the conferences with the labor authorities. This action has to be made directly by employee. The filing of claim to labor authorities does not cost anything, which could be counted as fringe benefit of this treatment.

Hassan Mohsen Elhais - senior partner of Al Rowaad Advocates.

After certifying as a legal representative in his native Egypt within the fields of Wrongdoer and Public Regulation, Mr. Mohsen Elhais has been practicing in Dubai for the past 7 years.

Functioning specifically with Al Rowaad Advocates, Hassan is an efficient leader of the company, the representative and driving force. Hassan has a strong honest position with regards to the place of the law firm and its work on part of the client, from clarity on the legal process via to the fee system.

Being experts in the composing of all declaration of claim, memoranda and examination with regards to all kind of lawsuits, Hassan has worked his method through the ranks of Al Rowaad Supporters from joining as Lawful Advisor to his existing role as Managing Partner.