Workers who fail to regularize their status after canceling their work cards

Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor for Labor Affairs, Hamid bin Dimas, confirmed that hundreds of workers, whose contractual relations with employers ended and whose cards were canceled through the ministry, did not complete the cancellation and departure procedures, according to the country’s laws, and failed to follow up on the procedures for canceling residency visas, after the cancellation. Work cards with the aim of staying within the country for as long as possible.

Ben Dimas stressed the responsibility of employers and workers to complete these procedures “so that they do not bear the consequences of violating the law,” explaining that canceling the labor card means that there are only two paths for the worker to take, one of which is to leave the country during the legal period after cancellation, and the second is to amend his status by transfer. To a new employer, during the legal period during which he is allowed to remain in the country after the cancellation, explaining, “The state gave residents a month after the residency cancellation, so that they can adjust their status, which is a sufficient period to move to a new job.” He pointed out that the ministry’s statistics – during the years 2011 and 2012 – show that there is a significant increase in the number of internally transferred workers, after implementing internal transfer decisions, reducing the duration of employment contracts from three years to two years only, reducing work permit fees, and canceling letters of refusal. Resistance, and setting clear conditions for the transfer of skilled labor within the country.

Bin Dimas – during his reception of the auditors of the open day, yesterday, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor in Abu Dhabi – rejected several requests to obtain new work permits submitted by workers, after it was proven to the Ministry that they resided in the country illegally, after canceling their work cards, which indicates their work. With other employers in violation of the law.

Among these requests, a request was submitted by a worker of the nationality of an Arab country, in which he stated that the facility in which he worked had been closed for three years, and that he had financial dues from his employer that he had not received, and he said that for this reason he had remained inside the country throughout this period, without Initiate procedures to modify his status.

He also rejected a request to reactivate a work card that was canceled about a full year ago. Its owner did not complete the procedures, despite the end of his relationship with the company in which he worked.

Bin Dimas directed the necessity of conducting inspection and review of the files of establishments that canceled workers on their sponsorship, under the pretext of not needing them, to ensure that these companies exist and carry out their work normally, and that the relationship between them and the workers is not a sham employment relationship, as the workers have submitted requests to lift administrative deprivation. Which was applied to them, due to the termination of their services before two years in the facilities that sponsored them, so that they could join other facilities.

The Open Day Committee confirmed that the employer’s unilateral termination of the contractual relationship allows the worker to move to work for another facility, without the need for an exception, as long as the contractual relationship between him and the first company is a valid working relationship.

Bin Dimas also directed that an inspection be conducted at a café in which a complaint was received from one of its workers, in which she said that her services were terminated only a year and a half after joining the job, due to the café owner’s desire to change the staff.

The Ministry refused to cancel financial fines recorded on one of the companies, after its ownership was transferred to a new owner, as the new owner said that he had not committed any of these violations, and did not know when he bought the company that it had financial violations. The Ministry responded that the law requires that he bear responsibility for the establishment – during The first six months of the transfer of ownership – the old and new owners, and after the end of this period, full responsibility is transferred to the new owner.

The Open Day Committee confirmed – in its response to a request from an establishment owner to recover work permit fees that she had paid, but then withdrew from completing the permit procedures – that it is not permissible to return the fees paid to obtain work permits, but rather the establishment can replace the worker to be employed with a new permit with the same fees previously paid. The Ministry referred for study a request submitted by a contracting facility, to exclude a British person working as a scaffolding worker with a salary of 27 thousand dirhams from the university degree requirement, to change his job to operations manager in the company, despite not having a university degree.

The committee stated that the application and the papers attached to it will be studied, stressing that there are criteria for exception to the qualification requirement, including that he must have sufficient experience to work in this job, and that the job to which he is to be transferred must not be a specialized job, such as medicine, engineering, or law.

The committee pointed out that some employers are forced to register any job that does not require qualifications when obtaining a work permit to facilitate procedures, and then they resort to changing the profession after that.