The UAE is a relatively young country that managed to become one of the top-notch countries in the world in a little more than fifty years. Just like any other country, the United Arab Emirates have their own peculiarities when it comes to employment and workplace procedures (Gallagher and Pounder 88). The types of employment leaves are not an exception. This essentially happened due to the basic UAE’s working sector divided into two cohorts: private and public sector workers (Parreñas 21).
It is an important factor, as the difference between those sectors grants them different benefits and privileges. The paper describes and explains all those differences, providing insight on each of the existing types of employment leaves in the United Arab Emirates.
Annual Leave
Full-time private division workers in the United Arab Emirates are permitted to have at least 30 calendar days yearly leave in addition to the standard public days off. Twenty days of annual leave are entitled to the workers who are positioned in the Dubai International Financial Center. Each and every accumulated annual leave is billed to the worker upon the expiry of hire (Jeffreys 204). If the situation at the workplace necessitates that, for example, an imperative project has to be finished by a particular time limit, a worker can suspend annual leave to the succeeding year or take money payment in the place of the annual leave. Nevertheless, accrued annual leave cannot be passed over outside the end of the following year.
Sick Leave
The worker is not eligible to have any compensated sick leave all through the trial period. Still, if an employee works for more than three months after completion of the trial period, the worker is authorized to have a sick leave less than 90 days either incessant or sporadic for each year of service. It should be renowned that the worker should make available the indication of his sickness meriting sick leave by the sanctioned medical documentation.
Additionally, the worker will not be permitted to get paid for the days that he has not testified to work after the termination of his leave (whether sick leave or annual leave). This will not predispose the constitutional rights of the company to dismiss the worker’s contract if the employee is not able to get back to the workplace during the interior of seven following days from the day of the week he was due back.
Study/Educational Leave
There are also some other categories of leave that exist specifically in the public sector, such as educational leave and exceptional leave. A civil worker who desires of enrolling to a full-time course of education may be approved to have a proper leave of nonappearance by his or her agency or an alternate administration branch. In the same way, public sector workers may be permitted to have a special leave in order, for example, to represent the United Arab Emirates at some intercontinental sporting event or take part in a government-subsidized national exchange or to be present at a transnational festival as an authorized United Arab Emirates representative. In all these examples, the worker is allowed to have his or her full compensation. There are no equivalent leave prerogatives offered under the statute for private-sector workers.
Maternity Leave
According to the statistics, the maternity leave budget in the United Arab Emirates is the bottommost in the world, being above 50% lesser than the international standard established by the International Labour Organization. The private sector childbearing leave is allowed to be only 45 days on full recompense, due to a minimum period of unremitting work of one year. Maternity leave may be taken all through the complete period of confinement.
Subsequently, with the backing of proper medicinal reports, the dispensation can be protracted to a period equal to 100 uninterrupted or interrupted days without reimbursement, if the mother is not in an acceptable state to come back to work or to work incessantly, for motives related to the birth. The public segment’s original maternity leave allowance is 60 days with full recompense initially and with a supplementary allowance of 100 days of unwaged leave subsequently.
Paternity Leave
Basically, there is no fatherhood leave available for private sector personnel. Nevertheless, public sector workers, who become dads, are authorized to have three successive working days of paternity leave.
Hajj Leave
According to the Labour Law requirements, all Muslim workers in the private sector are allowed to have 30 days of uncompensated leave, on one occasion during their working period, with the intention of carrying out the Hajj (pilgrimage). There is a Hajj leave allowance for the public segment personnel of 15 days only, but, in this kind of situation the leave is wholly remunerated and will be granted two times throughout the worker’s civil service vocation, because of a 10-year interval between the occasions on which Hajj leave is applied for.
Public Holidays
All the employees working in the public segment can expect additional days off compared to those in the private segment. All public holidays are waged, and may not be considered as a servant’s annual leave (United Arab Emirates Business Law Handbook 172).
Compassionate Leave
In the cases of the demise of a first-notch relative, the workers shall be eligible for a salaried compassionate leave of five working days, and three working days in cases of the passing of a second-notch relative. Compassionate leave may be united with the yearly leave. If this type of leave happens during the annual leave, then the days will be ascribed back to the worker’s annual leave privilege. Nevertheless, compassionate leave shall not be permitted for any employee during any other kind of leave (Özbilgin and Syed 16).
Iddah Leave
Muslim widows are authorized to have Iddah leave of four months and ten days if their spouse passes away (Locke 1).
Medical Support Leave
This plan is only valid for the United Arab Emirates National personnel at SEHA. SEHA is the business advertising title of Abu Dhabi Health Services Company, a self-governing public shared a stock business that possesses and runs all public hospitals and health centers across the emirate. Upon the end of the trial period, workers can go together with their direct relatives (mother, father, brother, sister, significant other and children, or other folks if permitted by the official United Arab Emirates ruling classes and human resources executive) in need of immediate medicinal treatment outside of the Emirates, as decided by the certified authorities in the United Arab Emirates (the legal branch shall resolve if the funding association is considered an authorized authority or not).
Civic Responsibility Leave
The organizations shall give the public responsibility to leave with full compensation to workers obliged or compelled by SEHA to attest as an eyewitness in a lawsuit concerning SEHA for matters. Civic responsibility leave is also approved for the personnel who will become the unpaid assistants willing to take part in national calamity activities when a national catastrophe is professed, and service is requested by official parties.
The workers contributing to the nationwide events will also be awarded the civic responsibility leave. The workers representing the UAE in national sporting squads may apply for a granted civic responsibility leave as per approval of higher authorities on a case by case basis. The approval of the higher authorities is compulsory for the exclusive cases which are not declared in this policy.
Unpaid Leave
The Minister or whom he envoys may allow an employee get an unremunerated leave for no more than thirty days once a year on condition that such employee should have grave motives which require granting him such leave and it is restricted that he should have used all his yearly leave, and this leave will not be considered within the period of work of the worker.
The paper dwells on different types of employment leaves in the United Arab Emirates and provides the necessary information on each of the types of employment leaves. The data is factual and relevant, and it covers all of the aspects and peculiarities of the UAE’s employment leave organization.
Works Cited
Gallagher, Kay, and James S. Pounder. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues. Bingley: Emerald Insight, 2011. Print.
Jeffreys, Andrew. The Report: Dubai 2008. London: Oxford Business Group, 2008. Print.
Locke, Suzanne. “How UAE Firms Deal with Grief in the Workplace.” The National. N.p. 2015. Web.
Özbilgin, Mustafa, and Jawad Syed. Managing Gender Diversity in Asia: A Research Companion. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2010. Print.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work. 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2015. Print.
United Arab Emirates Business Law Handbook: Strategic Information and Basic Laws. Vol. 1. Raleigh: Lulu, 2009. Print.