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Legal consultations Thursday, 04 November 2010 03:09
Question: A labourer is complaining that the company where he works is deducting two to five days of the workers’ salaries when they make a simple error. He asks if this deduction is legal and about the restrictions regulating the penalties against workers and how to complain against such penalties?
Answer:
The disciplinary penalties permitted to be applied against employees are as follows:
• Notice: it is served as a written letter to the employee notifying the committed violations with a warning of more penalty in case of repetition.
• Deduction of maximum five days from employee’s salary for one violation. Cessation of work with deduction of no more than five days salary for one violation.
• Ceasing the employee without salary or reduced salary until the charge decided. If the employee is innocent or the charge is being reserved, the suspension is cancelled and the employee’s accruals for the time of cessation shall be paid.
• Delaying the annual bonus for no more than six months or depriving the employee of it in companies adopting bonus system.
• Delaying the promotion for a maximum one year in the companies adopting such system.
• Dismissal with preserving the right of end of service gratuity.
• Dismissal with depriving the employee of end of service gratuity.
Legal restriction shall be complied with when imposing penalties against employees, provided that the deductions of their salary shall not exceed five days in a month. The employer shall record the penalties imposed against employees including the employee’s name and amount of deduction along with cause of penalty and its date with condition that such record shall be subject to the work inspection authority. Imposing penalties against violators shall be complied with the following:
Penalty should be imposed against the employee only after notifying the employee with the charge and interrogating them. Investigation may be oral in simple violations for which the penalty regulation stipulated is notice or deduction of one day salary, provided that the above should be written in a minute saved in the employee’s file.
One penalty should be applied on the employee for one violation.
No penalty should be imposed for an act not mentioned in the penalties regulation.
Question: An Asian female employee says that she was working with a private company and her services were terminated, and her sponsor requested her to find another sponsor to transfer her sponsorship and he refused to renew her residence visa. After a long time, she found a new job and she went to the company to ask for signing the sponsorship transfer papers, but she was surprised that the sponsor has filed an escape report against her and he submitted her passport to the Detection and Follow up Department. She wants to know if she can leave the country without facing any trouble, especially since she has to settle a car loan to the bank.
Answer:
Question: What is the leave that the employees of the private sector are entitled to? Can the leave be postponed or can employees get cash instead of availing the leave? Can the company terminate the employee’s services during their period of leave?
Answer:
The employee may not waive their right to the annual leave, otherwise any agreement shall be considered null and void. The employee shall have the right to get a cash compensation for the entitled leave if the employment contract ends for any reasons before consuming the leave.
Employee shall have the right to spend a paid sick leave for each year of his service. This leave shall be granted only after three months of joining date and according to a report from a doctor approved by the employer. The employee shall be paid full salary if the sick leave period does not exceed two weeks. If it is more than that, the employee shall be paid half of the salary for another four weeks. Any extension to the leave after that shall be without payment until the employee resumes the work, resigns or their services is ended for health reasons. If the employee resigns due to sickness and with approval of the doctor before the end of the six weeks which the employee is entitled to as a paid sick leave, the employer shall pay them the remaining accruals. This applies also to death due to disease before the end of the six weeks. The employee’s consumption of the twelve weeks period of the sick leave shall not be considered as a suspension of his continuous service and the Muslim employees shall be entitled to Hajj leave one time during their service and the employee may not work with any other employer during the leave period.
The employer may not terminate the employment contract or notify the employee of terminating the contract during any of the abovementioned leaves as per Labour Law No. 14/2004. The employer may not notify the employee of terminating the contract if the notification period ends during any of the said leaves.
Labour Law No. 14/2004, concerning the annual leave states that the employee who spent a full year with the employer shall be entitled to a paid annual leave of at least three weeks for the employees who spent less than five years in service and four weeks for the employees who spent five years or more in service. The employer decides the date of the employee’s annual leave according to the work requirements and the employer may, by the employee’s consent, divide the leave, provided that the leave should not be more than two periods. The employer, upon a written request from the employee, may defer maximum half of the annual leave duration to the next year. The employee should ask the ponsor, who reported her escape, to give her a letter to submit it to the detection and follow up department and pay an amount of six thousand riyals as a fine to get her passport and prevent deportation. After that, she should request her sponsor to sign the form of sponsorship transfer and submit it to Directorate of Passports to complete sponsor transfer procedures. Labour Law No. 14/2004, concerning the employer’s disciplinary authority states that the employer who employs ten workers or more shall have a penalties regulation including violations and punitive procedures against perpetrators as well as conditions and terms thereof. In order to legalize the penalties regulation and its amendments, it shall be approved by the manager within one month of its submission to the management. If such a period elapses without any objection, the regulation is considered as approved and the employer shall show the regulation at the work site to be viewed by the employees. The regulation shall be considered effective only after fifteen days of announcement.