For migrant workers, it’s hard enough to be miles away from your loved ones back in your home country.
But an added challenge to that is understanding the A, B. C’s of the laws in your destination country.
In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), migrant workers face new terms in their employment contracts that may be unfamiliar to them.
One of these often-heard terms is the so-called labor ban.
According to Ashish Mehta, Founder and Managing Partner of Ashish Mehta & Associates, the free zone authority from which a worker who has just resigned is seeking a new job may impose a months-long labor ban.
Mehta wrote in the Khaleej Times that if a UAE work contract is not terminated mutually, the worker is supposed to render a month to 3 months of service depending on the worker’s offer letter.
“In accordance with Article 1 of Ministerial Decree 765 of 2015 regarding Rules and Conditions for the Termination of Employment Relations, if you submit your resignation letter to the employer, the employer, at his discretion, may waive off the notice period by mutually terminating your contract,” he wrote.
“But if your employer is not willing to terminate your employment contract mutually, then the notice period may vary from one month to three months depending on the offer letter and you are supposed to complete the notice period term,” he added.
Quoting Article 1(I) 2 (if limited contract) & (II) 1 (if unlimited contract) of Rules and Conditions for granting a permit to a worker for employment by a new employer, Mehta said the “concerned free zone authority may impose an employment ban for six months as you have not completed six months of service with your employer.”
The subject rule is said to read as follows: “The worker and employer mutually consent to terminating the contract during the course of its term, provided the worker has completed a period of no less than six months with the employer; the latter provision is waived for workers who qualify for skill levels 1, 2 and 3, as per the ministry’s classification.”
An Emirates24/7 news report also affirms this rule, saying The Ministry of Labor has implemented changes to labor regulations including the waiving of the six-month labor ban on workers who are switching jobs “if the work permit and employment are terminated in mutual agreement.”
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