UAE labour market compliant with international standards

The UAE aims at implementing the best standards in the protection of workers, and providing them with a suitable and healthy environment to live in, Jameela Al Hamili, member of the board of directors of the UAE Human Rights Association told Khaleej Times.

She said the government has built several residential clusters such as Al Raha Labour compound, which feature high standard of services and specifications similar to international ones.

“This is part of the policy of the sagacious government which provides houses, cities and clusters of labour compounds,” she said. “It reflects the policy of the UAE of providing for an important segment of society, which is the workforce stratum, taking into account all international laws,” she noted.

Labourers at work on the Dubai Water Canal project. — KT photo by Grace Guino

She said the workers’ committee is concerned with making the UAE labour market compliant with international standards with regard to safeguarding the rights and freedom, as well as providing solutions to workers’ problems, spreading awareness among workers about revising the laws and regulations, and offering advice in a way that maintain their rights.

“The Ministry of Labour has implemented a slew of unique procedures to protect and preserve the rights of workers, especially the wages protection system, inspection measures and others,” she said.

She confirmed that the initiatives of the labour market in the UAE reflect the UAE’s political will which guarantees protection of workers and maintenance of rights.

Al Hamly referred to several world systems which treated the labour rights in the country with justice; among which was a study presented last year.

A report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, an independent watchdog company, published recently concluded that the Development and Tourism Investment Company is concerned with the performance of major and sub-contractors with it. It is concerned with the rights of workers taking up works at Al Sadiyat Island.

PricewaterhouseCoopers interviewed as many as 565 jobless people accounting for 19 per cent of the average monthly number of workers working on Al Sadiyat Island.

The report stresses that contractors have firmly complied with ‘the recruitment practices policy’ document. This document, released by the company in 2009 stipulates a number of terms, conditions and rules stemming from the UAE labour law, and sometimes from some world practices.

The report referred to a fact that PricewaterhouseCoopers has issued a ‘fine penalty system’ in the event that a contractor reneged on observing the recruitment policy.

Last August, the company slapped a contracting company with a fine — the first violation it reported — when it discovered the sub-contractor had delayed paying workers their wages on time. PricewaterhouseCoopers thus took immediate action, which resulted in the contractor paying workers their dues in full.

Meanwhile, PricewaterhouseCoopers’s report showed that most construction workers they met had their passports with them, while the others had handed over their passports to their employers voluntarily out of fear that they may lose them.

malazarooni@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE