This article shall elaborate about the duties employer’s regarding registration of employees and also the rights of employees following the termination with their labor contracts inside the UAE.
In general terms, all expatriate employees who want to work inside UAE should be employed by an appropriately licensed and approved company and has to be issued having an entry permit for employment purposes, a labor card (work permit) plus a residence visa.
Some Employees don’t know their rights upon the termination in their employment contracts, therefore, the issue needs to be carefully considered.
Comply while using Law
Employment relations inside the private sector inside the UAE are governed and regulated by Federal Law No. 8 on Regulation of Labor Relations to the year 1980. Employing foreign workers within the UAE entails complying with certain registration procedures for instance residence visa. If an employee does not have work permission and/or company sponsorship, article 13 from the Labor Law obliges the employer getting a foreigner to get permission and/or company sponsorship through the Ministry of Labor. The Labor Law is protective of employees generally and supersedes conflicting contractual provisions agreed under another jurisdiction, unless they may be beneficial to the staff member. Furthermore, this rule can be applied to the Free Zones looking at that there is no work permission.
Probation Period and seven rights
It is essential to note that any provision with the labor contract is invalid whether it either contradicts the UAE labor law or conflicts while using public interest. These provisions can correspond with establishment of probation period, gratuity, notice period, salary or even any penalty applied to the worker. According for the Federal Law No.8 from the year 1980 probation period cannot exceed couple of months.
The Labor Law provides Employees with mainly seven rights that have to be accompanied by the employer upon the termination on the labor contract.
According towards the Labor Law, a member of staff terminating his contract has rights to:
Get his/her unpaid salary
Get charges for added hours on the job
Have annual leave
Get gratuity (a three week period basic remuneration for any year with the first five-years of service and 30 days any year after.)
Get an air ticket
Notice period salary
Get a compensation for unfair dismissal (with maximum 3 months, but this era can be even more whether it is not mentioned within the contract).
As well since these seven rights, there is usually additional rights which might be included within the contract including commission and bonuses.
However, in the event the termination happens in the probation period, which is usually 6 months or less according to contract, the staff member will not have straight away to claim the rights stated earlier. He will just be entitled to unpaid salary, charges with regard to added hours of labor and air ticket. The bar time on labor matters for Dubai based companies is 1 year on the moment of termination with the labor contract.
How to say the rights?
It is significant that in order for a worker to be able to sign up for UAE Labor Authorities regarding any legal matter, he/she must have or a work permission and/or company sponsorship. Otherwise UAE Labor Authorities will never deal with a subject.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (the Ministry) may be the main body responsible with the regulation of manpower recruitment and it also plays a considerable role in settling labor differences between employers and employees. It should be noted that most labor disputes must initially be submitted towards the Labor Department with the Ministry for amicable settlement should the company is onshore.
The same regulation is applicable inside the Free Zones. However, Free Zones have their own own Legal Department where lawyers must not attend. For this reason before filing a case on the Court, you should take a letter of reply from Free Zone Legal Department for his claim.
In an instance if a worker works for Governmental Entity, he should apply towards the ruler office first with to issue Non-Objection Certificate (NOC).
The application will be handed on the concerned labor authority, who’ll arrange a gathering between the employee along with the employer. The goal of such meeting would be to come to your settlement with the issue.
One may wonder about the causes of checking out the above mentioned steps. Indeed, it really is one on the most important requirements of Labor Code. Applying through these labor authorities help website visitors to settle a high rate of issues between employers and employees. Moreover, such measures time savings and decrease how many cases prior to the courts. However the lawyers cannot attend the meetings together with the labor authorities. This step must be made personally by employee. The filing of state they labor authorities won’t cost anything, which might be counted as additional good thing about this procedure.