United Arab Emirates - 2011

Population: 4,600,000
Capital: Abu Dhabi
Migrant workers continue to be the victims of serious exploitation, while the government still refuses to allow independent trade unions. Children of just 10 years old are still being exploited as jockeys. Trade union rights are heavily restricted.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 Forced Labour (1930) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 138 Minimum Age for Employment (1973) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)

reported violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Background

The country is governed by a Supreme Council composed of the emirs of the seven Emirates. A Federal National Council was elected by a 6,689 member electoral college in 2006, but it only has an advisory role. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few families. The judicial system does little to inspire confidence. On 10 January, for example, a tribunal cleared Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the country’s leading ruling family, of charges of torture, despite video evidence showing him beating an Afghan cereal trader, Mohammed Shah Poor, using whips, a cattle prod and planks of wood covered with nails. On 29 March, however, a court in Sharjah condemened 17 Indians to death for the murder of a Pakistani man, although several human rights organisations reported that their confessions had been extracted under torture.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 Forced Labour (1930) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 138 Minimum Age for Employment (1973) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 4,600,000
Capital: Abu Dhabi

reported violations- 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Trade union rights in law

There is not much room in the law for trade union activities. The current Labour Law does not permit trade unions, although workers are allowed to associate for the furtherance of common goals and interests. Public sector workers, as well as domestic workers and anyone working in the agricultural sector, are not covered by the labour legislation, and the EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s have their own departments to deal with workers’ issues.

The right to collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
is not recognised in law, however workers’ representatives have some say in settling disputes. All wages are fixed in individual contracts that are reviewed by the authorities. Furthermore, the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike is not specifically recognised, and the Labour Minister has the power to intervene to end a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and force workers to go back to work. Public sector workers, security guards and migrant workers are not allowed to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , and migrants who participate in or provoke a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike “without a valid reason” can be banned from working for a year and can even have their work permits cancelled and be deported.

A draft Labour Law released for comments in 2007 does not improve the trade union rights situation in any significant way.

Additional information regarding the legislation
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 Forced Labour (1930) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 138 Minimum Age for Employment (1973) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 4,600,000
Capital: Abu Dhabi

reported violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

In practice

Exploitation of migrant workers :

Migrants, mainly from South Asia, make up the majority of the workforce. There are about 3.3 million migrant workers, accounting for 70% of the population. Many are employed in the construction industry and domestic work. Among the most frequent problems encountered by migrant workers are the confiscation of their passports, the lack of health and safety measures and the non-payment of their salaries for many months. They risk expulsion if they try to create trade unions.

The government has repeatedly announced that the defence of migrant workers’ rights is one of its biggest priorities. In June 2009 the United Arab Emirates adopted compulsory minimum housing standards in order to improve migrant workers’ living conditions. Employers have five years to meet these standards. In the same year the government introduced a salary protection mechanism which obliges enterprises to designate an agent responsible for paying their employees. The government is notified when the agent receives the salaries and ensures payment. There are loopholes in the system however.

Growing number of suicides in the construction industry : The downturn in Dubai’s construction sector continued. Hundreds of migrants found themselves trapped in camps for months, with no electricity or running water, after being dismissed. The employers fled the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the crisis, leaving months of salaries unpaid. Many dismissed migrant workers did not have enough money to get home and owed large sums of money to the recruitment agencies that brought them to the Emirates. Suicides among these workers increased in 2010.
Little improvement for domestic workers: In 2007, the government introduced a standard contract for foreign domestic workers that abolished commission fees by recruitment agencies and provided for decent living and working conditions. In practice, however, many migrant domestic workers suffer the same types of serious abuse faced in other countries in the region: confinement in the employers’ home, physical and sexual abuse, unpaid salaries, lack of food, excessive working hours, etc.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 Forced Labour (1930) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 138 Minimum Age for Employment (1973) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 4,600,000
Capital: Abu Dhabi

reported violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher

Violations

Children still used as jockeys: In February the NGO Anti-Slavery International again found that children, of barely 10 years of age, were being used as jockeys in a camel race in Abu Dhabi, even though the law bans the use of jockeys under 18. The children came from South Asia. Police officers and a high ranking member of the royal family attended the race.
100 workers detained following strike : At the beginning of May nearly 100 Vietnamese construction workers were detained by police following a protest demonstration outside the Labour Ministry. They were demanding payment of three to four months’ salary arrears by their employer, the South Korean company Sungwon.
ILO Core Conventions Ratified:
29 Forced Labour (1930) 100 Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value (1951) 105 Abolition of Forced Labour (1957) 111 Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (1958) 138 Minimum Age for Employment (1973) 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999)
Population: 4,600,000
Capital: Abu Dhabi

reported violations - 2011

Documented violations - actual number of cases may be higher
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