ABU DHABI // The Ministry of Labour has referred 479 facilities and 528 workers for prosecution, for breaking national labour laws.
Maher Al Obed, assistant undersecretary for inspectional affairs, said there were more than 288,670 inspections last year within the private sector as part of the ministry’s commitment towards providing safer workplaces, meeting occupational health and safety standards, and ensuring housing for labourers was satisfactory, state news agency Wam reported.
“About 17,217 practices went against the law, according to last year’s reports, and the right legal procedures were undertaken against each violation,” said Mr Al Obed.
“Some of the measures taken against violating practices were just warnings, as the offence was not considered serious, such as misleading overtime calculations.”
Inspectors detected serious offences in 479 facilities, which were referred for public prosecution. Of these, 107 had not paid wages to their workers for more than two months, while 167 facilities had fake identities with no signed contracts with alleged employees.
Another 62 facilities allowed staff to work for other companies without permission, and 115 workplaces hired blacklisted labourers.
Eleven facilities provided incorrect documents to the ministry and 17 other workplaces were found to be operating as temporary employment agencies, flouting labour laws. Mr Al Obed said the ministry refused to service 2,050 facilities for repeated breaches of labour laws, and imposed fines on 142 other workplaces for breaking labour laws. But 2,280 facilities had resolved offences with the ministry during the past year.
“A total of 8,888 visits were carried out to labour camps to find out minor offences that did not amount to major risks towards the health and safety of workers, yet the ministry filed warnings to fix such irregularities,” said Mr Al Obed.
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