Today's Edition
Khaled Al Khawaldeh (Abu Dhabi)
Earlier this week, the UAE Government issued a slew of amendments to the UAE Labour Law designed to clamp down on improper employment practices.
The amendments included fines between Dh100,000 and Dh1 million on employers who employ workers without a proper permit, hire workers and bring them to the country and fail to provide them with a job, misuse work permits, or shut down a business or suspend its activities without settling workers' rights.
Speaking to Aletihad, Legal Consultant at Awatif Mohammad Shoqi Advocates & Legal Consultancy, Faraz Salat, said the new fines and penalties did not constitute major reforms, but would likely give authorities more teeth in implementing the law.
"In terms of the actual law not much has been changed. It has always been not allowed to bring workers in and then not give them a job, but these added penalties are administrative provisions that allow authorities to take action," Faraz said.
"I would say these amendments are more about increasing compliance than anything else."
Faraz said cases where employers and agents were promising work seekers from overseas jobs in the UAE, only for them to find no work on arrival, were common and necessitated the added enforcement measures.
The new law comes weeks before a nationwide visa amnesty will allow people with expired documentation to secure their status or leave the country without being fined.
"We see a lot of cases where someone has been brought in from overseas, and once they land after spending lots of money to get here and pay an agent they find that there is no work, or the work is not what they were promised," Faraz said.
The Federal Decree-Law amending regulation of Employment Relationship Law also introduced criminal penalties for fictitious recruitment, most notably for dodgy Emiratisation practices that has seen some firms employ Emiratis to fill government mandated quotas.
The new law stipulates criminal proceedings for fictitious employment, including fraudulent Emiratisation, can only be initiated by the Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation and it gives the ministry the power to settle the cases.
"What happens is there are benefits that you can get when you bring in these Emirati employees so what these amendments do is clamp down on this and make sure there is further disincentive to engage in these practices," he said.
"I think this is really about giving the Ministry the tools it needs to really implement the labour laws."
The Federal Decree-Law Regarding the Regulation of the Employment Relationship, known as the UAE Labour law, was released back in 2022 and created a set of new regulations aimed at improving the rights of workers in the country.
