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“UAE: Draft Labor Law Violates International Standards” Audio Transcript Dinah PoKempner, General Counsel at Human Rights Watch I am speaking today about an opportunity that the United Arab Emirates has to make important revisions to its labor law. Human Rights Watch is releasing a briefing paper about our concerns with the current draft legislation and recommendations for reform. In 2006, an in-depth investigation by Human Rights Watch exposed startling evidence of serious abuses among construction workers in the UAE, most of who are migrants from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Human Rights Watch reported on high rates of death, injury and exploitation among migrant workers and noted that the UAE’s government has failed to adequately address these abuses. Human Rights Watch has also documented abuses against domestic workers in the UAE and throughout the region including unpaid wages, confinement in the workplace and physical and sexual abuse. The UAE government is now considering revisions to its labor law. On February 5th, the country’s labor ministry published a draft version of the new law online and invited the public to comment. But the law falls far short of meeting international standards and would do little to improve the plight of migrant workers in the UAE. Carol Pier, senior Labor Rights and Trade researcher wrote the briefing paper on the UAE’s new law with Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights division and expert on the treatment of domestic workers. They are both here to speak on the UAE draft law. Carol, could you give us a sense of whether the UAE draft law addresses the main concerns raised in that report? Carol Pier The short answer is no. Human Rights Watch has documented how migrant workers in the UAE suffer a wide range of rights abuses, and a natural way for these workers to respond would be to join together to complain to their employers and to try to negotiate better work terms. The draft UAE’s labor law leaves out provisions that could make that possible, and is completely silent on the rights to organize and bargain collectively and bound strikes which are an essential element of trade union rights. Dinah PoKempner Nisha Varia Unfortunately, the current draft excludes domestic workers completely along with a few other categories of workers, including farm workers. What this means is that they are not protected under really basic provisions including limits on working hours every day, overtime pay, and even whether they get their wages every month. And what we have documented in the United Arab Emirates, as well as many other countries, is that migrant domestic workers often confront long periods where they are not provided their wages, where they are working sixteen to nineteen hours a day without a single day off. Many of them have their passports taken away from them and are confined to the workplace. The UAE really has an opportunity to distinguish itself as a model in the region by extending labor protections to domestic workers. We hope that they will use this opportunity to revise their draft law, to include domestic workers, as well as the other categories that, at the current moment, they have left out. Dinah PoKempner Thank you Nisha and Carol for that explanation of the draft law.
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