Employees need not pay visa costs

December 23, 2016

Dec 23: I would like to know whether an employee has to pay Dh5,000 as visa charges if for some reason he has to cancel his employment visa after six months of employment. Is there any law in the UAE wherein the employer can ask for the money before cancelling the visa of his employee?

visa
Pursuant to your queries, it may be advised that where an employee seeks to terminate his employment contract, the employer shall not be legally entitled to receive from the employee, any amount of money against the cost of visa incurred by the employer.

It may also be noted that there are no laws which prescribe that an employee should reimburse the employer towards the visa expenses. Rather it shall be deemed to be in contravention of Article 60 of the Federal Law No 8 of 1980 Re: Regulation of Labour Relations which states:

"No amount of money may be deducted from a worker's wage in respect of private claims, except in the following cases:

1) Repayment of loans or money advances paid to the worker in excess of his entitlements, provided that the amount deducted in this case shall not exceed 10 per cent of his wage.

2) Contributions that the workers are required by law to make from their wages, towards social security and insurance schemes.

3) The worker's contributions to a provident fund or repayment of loans due thereto.

4) Contributions towards any welfare scheme or in respect of any other privileges or services provided by the employer and approved by the labour department.

5) Fines imposed upon the worker for any offence he commits.

6) Any debt exacted in execution of a court ruling, provided, however, that the deduction made in execution thereof should not exceed one-quarter of the wage due to the worker. Where there are several debts or creditors, the maximum deduction shall be half the worker's wage, which shall be divided pro rata among the creditors, after payment of any legal alimony to the extent of one quarter of the worker's wage."

Professions and work ban

I work as an engineer under a limited contract and I have completed only one year with the company. Now I need to quit, but I was informed by the MoL customer care that I will get a six-month ban and that the company can impose a one-year ban which is not removable. Also, I have to pay back 45 days' gross salary to the company in order to start the cancellation procedure even though I gave them 30 days' notice. My designation as per my visa is Electrical Lines Engineer.

It is understood that you are working as an engineer with an entity in the UAE and that you have completed a year of service with this entity and also that your designation as per your visa is mentioned as Electrical Lines Engineer. It is assumed that your employment is subject to provisions of the Federal Law No 8 of 1980 Re: Regulation of Labour Relations (the "Labour Law").

Pursuant to your question, it may be advised that you shall not be liable to face a labour ban if you resign from your job before completion of the contract period. The Labour Law recognises that certain professionals shall be free to change their employment at any point of time.

This is in accordance with Article 2 of the Ministerial Order No (13) of 1991 on 'The organisation of the transfer of sponsorships of non-national labours the rules governing the same' which states:

"Non-national labourers may be allowed to transfer one job to another and hence transfer of their sponsorship if they fall under the following categories:

a) Engineers

b) Doctors, Pharmacists and male and female Nurses

c) Agricultural guides

d) Qualified accountants and account auditors

e) Qualified administrative officials

f) Technician operating on electronic equipment and laboratories

g) Drivers who are licensed to drive heavy vehicles and buses

(in case of transfer of sponsorship from a private firm to another or from a private firm to another or to a government department)."

Further, it may be advised that, since you are working under a limited period contract, in the event you decide to terminate your employment contract, you will have to compensate your employer for the prejudice, by an amount which shall not be more than your 45 days' salary.

This is in accordance with Article 116 of the Labour Law which states as follows:

"Where a contract is revoked for reasons other than those specified article (121), he shall be required to compensate the employer for any prejudice the latter sustains as a result: provided that the amount of compensation shall not exceed half the worker's remuneration for three months or the residual period of the contract whichever is shorter unless the contract contains a provision to the contrary."

It may be noted that for individuals working under a limited period contract, there is no prescribed time-limit for serving a notice period prior to expiry of the contract.

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 14,2024

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The UN special rapporteur for Palestine has slammed Israel’s parliament for passing a law authorizing the detention of Palestinian children, who are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” in Israeli custody.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in a Thursday post on X, characterized the experiences of Palestinian minors in Israeli detention as extreme and often inhumane.

The UN expert highlighted the grave impact of this policy, noting that up to 700 Palestinian minors are taken into custody each year, a practice she described as part of an unlawful occupation that views these children as potential threats.

Albanese said Palestinian minors in Israeli custody are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” and that “generations of Palestinians will carry the scars and trauma from the Israeli mass incarceration system.”

She further criticized the international community for its inaction, suggesting that ongoing diplomatic efforts, which often rely on the idea of resuming negotiations for peace, have contributed to normalizing such human rights violations against Palestinian children and the broader population.

The comments by Albanese came in response to Israel’s parliament (Knesset) passing a law on November 7 that authorizes the detention of Palestinian children under the age of 14 for “terrorism or terrorist activities.”

Under the legislation, a temporary five-year measure, once the individuals turn 14, they will be transferred to adult prison to continue serving their sentences.

Additionally, the law allows for a three-year clause that enables courts to incarcerate minors in adult prisons for up to 10 days if they are considered dangerous. Courts have the authority to extend this duration if necessary, according to the Knesset.

The legislation underscores a shift in the treatment of minors and raises alarms among human rights advocates regarding the legal and ethical ramifications of detaining children and the conditions under which they may be held.

Thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently in Israeli jails—around one-third without charge or trial. Also, an unknown number are arbitrarily held following a wave of arrests in the wake of the regime's genocidal war on Gaza.

Since the onset of the Gaza war, the Israeli regime, under the supervision of extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has turned prisons and detention centers into “death chambers,” the ministry of detainees and ex-detainees’ affairs in Gaza says.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other forms of abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalized across Israel’s jail system, reports indicate.

Over 270 Palestinian minors are being detained by Israeli authorities, in violation of UN resolutions and international treaties that forbid the incarceration of children, as reported by Palestinian rights organizations.

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