Q: Dear Mr Hari, I would like to ask your advice. I have got a termination of my employment (unlimited contract) due to redundancy on September 2017 (a year ago). Since my son is under my sponsorship & studying in a Dubai school, I have requested to not cancel the visa until it expires itself. The company agreed to it due to the bad financial situation and inability to pay right away my "end of service" benefits. Every 2-3 months they were paying some amounts of the annual leave & annual tickets. My employment visa was cancelled completely in October 2018, and again due to bad financial situation the company was not able to pay the gratuity right away, so they provided the PDC.

Q: Dear Sir, I have worked March 2008 to July 2011 in Mushrif National Construction LLC Central Market Project Souk - Abu Dhabi. My job designation was IT Assitant, my salary was Dhs 3200/- per month. Also, they have provided yearly two-way tickets and leave salary benefits. In July 2011 I went to India for long leave. The company terminated me on January 31, 2012. After that, they calculated my indemnity money Dhs 6044/-. Partly they have sent my pending salaries and my indemnity money, they have sent only Dhs 2000/- till now. They did not pay my balance indemnity money Dhs 4044/-. I have sent a lot of emails and mobile calls with no response from Mushrif National Construction LLC. Kindly please help.

Q: I have worked for a company in a senior management role for two years and resigned due to my personal reasons. My resignation was accepted and I was asked to hand over the charge to new management since more than one year ago now. My visa was also cancelled after a few months of my resignation. The new management took the charge and could not manage the business efficiently after my exit, and the business which resulted in the termination of the new management. The company is now blaming me that during my tenure with the company earlier, there was some wrong decision taken which has caused losses to the company. The company now wants to file a legal case against me. I am getting several threatening messages and calls to come back and resolve the old issues, which is causing me mental torture and disturbance in my family. I am not in a position to help the company to recover their irreparable damages now. Please advise what is the UAE labour law for such a situation.

Q: I had been working for an LLC company in Dubai for 6+ years on an unlimited contract and got terminated due to company restructuring. I had signed my labour cancellation papers as they promised me that they will settle the amount at the earliest and currently working for a different company. My termination happened in Nov 2016 and I had received half the amount of my end of service benefits in instalments. I have not received the rest and they are not replying to my emails and they are telling me they will return for sure once the company is in good shape. Please let me know if I still have a chance to get my end of service benefits.

Q: Dear Sir/Madam, I continuously worked for a company in Abu Dhabi for 8 years. My contract was terminated last March 18. My gratuity has not been paid since then as the company kept stalling me by promising to pay it in my home country. I deeply regret trusting them. I am currently working outside the UAE and it had been more than 1 year after the termination of my contract. Given the above, can you please tell me what rights do I have at the moment?

The UAE has adopted a major reform in its legislative system that brought about 40 new laws and amendments to the company law, criminal law, personal status, among others. The amendments aim to develop the legislative structure in various sectors, the labor law being one of these, was the most recent. We try in this article to shed light on the changes introduced with the new labor law and their significance on both, the employer and employee.

The provisions of this Law, known as "UAE Labour Law", govern the relationship between employers and employees and other labour matters in the United Arab Emirates. There are special labour related regulations applicable in some of the free zones in the UAE.

The provisions of this Decree-Law, known as "New UAE Labor Law", govern labour relations in the private sector of the United Arab Emirates. The New Labor Law repeals the previous UAE Labor Law (Federal Law No. (8) of 1980).