A good couple of years for labour reform in the UAE

The name Lavito Building Cleaning Services should be remembered, if only for its misdeeds. The company abandoned 84 Filipina employees in September without food, electricity or water at an Ajman villa. The women were owed three months' salary and, it emerged, their residency applications had never been processed by the company. In this case, the local Philippine community raised money to help the women and the Ministry of Labour stepped in to ensure back wages were paid. It was a generous, if ad hoc, solution.

These situations need to be remembered to understand the importance of the Wage Protection System (WPS). As The National reported yesterday, 3.3 million workers in the UAE are now being paid by direct deposit into their bank accounts. This means that payments are now verifiable. Companies and their middlemen are much more likely to be held to account for overdue wages.

When the protection system was enacted 15 months ago, it was a major step forward for labour rights in the country. "WPS is possibly the most significant development, not just this year, but in recent history," Samir Khosla, the vice-chairman of the labour recruitment firm Dynamic Staffing Services, said at the time. "The magnitude is so immense that it outshines everything else."

Since then, major changes to no objection letter requirements and shorter contract terms for unskilled and semi-skilled employees have been of similar magnitude. All in all, it has been a good couple of years for labour reform in the UAE.

There is obviously more work to be done. Yesterday's article pointed out that there are still 700,000 employees, and 40 per cent of companies nationwide, who are not enrolled in the Wage Protection System. Most of these are smaller companies with few employees, although the Ministry of Labour says it is on hand to provide assistance. As long as the companies are playing fair, they too should benefit from a streamlined, transparent payment process.

More than just regulation, enforcement is needed. Lavito Services was remiss in paying wages a full year after the wage protection scheme was implemented. What is more, the company was accused of falsifying contracts and forging labour cards, which has been illegal under any labour regime. But as the case shows, there is more of a will - and more tools - to bring such dirty dealings to light.