ABU DHABI: The UAE has announced labor reforms to protect foreign workers.
Labor Minister Saqr Ghobash said that from January 2016 the UAE would take steps which, when completed, would get rid of “all the practices that were associated with kafala.”
He outlined steps strengthening the right to change employer and preventing “involuntary labor” by lodging the workers’ contracts with the labor ministry rather than with the employers, who currently hold the documents.
“The worker cannot, under any circumstances, be made to, or otherwise be compelled, to remain in an employment relation,” a ministry statement said.
A reorganization of labor contracts would also stop so-called “substitution,” where foreign workers sign one contract before they leave their home country and are compelled to renegotiate lower wages when they arrive in the Gulf.
UAE reforms boon for foreign workers
