UAE Gives More Power to the Worker and Property Leaser with Landmark Legal Action
The lowly employee and the struggling renter have been accorded some protection in recent developments.
The UAE government is cracking down on exploitive employers as well as property owners who rent or lease substandard dwellings. Over the last few days, top authorities have taken stern action designed to render power to the powerless. These include visitors bearing travel visas who are put to unpaid work on the false promise of steady jobs with remuneration and residency once their visas expire. A recipient of the short end of this stick was a South African expat - Kieran Foury - who was taken on for three months for marketing work before being unceremoniously dismissed. Foury even had to shell out AED 5,500 for illegally overstaying in the UAE for a few days.
A key UAE labour law was tweaked recently, aiming to protect workers’ rights. According to this amendment to the decree, guilty employers will have to cough up between AED 100,000 and AED 1 Million. This revised fine is a significant bump up from the previous AED 50,000 to AED 200,000. A senior associate with a major company - Hadiel Hussein - welcomes the move, believing that the fine hike and threat of other penalties would bring about the desired effect. Hussein added that the new decree will facilitate a “more efficient, equitable and streamlined legal process”. Hussein also stated that prospective expats should accept a letter of appointment, not from the misguiding firm, but from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE).
UAE officials are addressing more injustice and how. The Dubai Land Development (DLD) has come down hard on ten property owners in the city who failed to comply to code. The guilty dectet’s negligence, greed and apathy led to overcrowding and poor health and safety standards for their tenants. The DLD’s previous demands had fallen on deaf ears. Then after a complete investigation recently, the DLD has decided to ban the errant landlords. How’s that for an eviction notice! The culpable parties were apparently cashing in on the post-pandemic population increase.
