ABU DHABI // More than 1,000 labourers will receive wages owed and have new jobs after their boss fled the country, thanks to the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department’s double-decker bus court.
Last October, the Lebanese owner of an engineering consultancy ran off, leaving 1,004 staff members without the wages they were owed.
The case was raised by the Ministry of Labour with the judicial department’s human rights office in February.
“We moved immediately in the mobile court to the labour site,” said Fatma Albedwawi, acting head of the office.
The department has a double-decker bus that acts as a mobile court, allowing staff to complete complex cases on site.
Within three months, some of the workers had received their dues and all had new jobs.
A lawyer was appointed and the company property was confiscated before the owner could sell it from overseas.
Lawsuits were filed at the mobile court by all 1,004 labourers, of which 350 cases have been resolved so far.
“We allocated a special court and judge exclusive to their case and by the end of this month hopefully all of the cases will be concluded,” said Chief Justice Eissa Al Zaabi, head of the labour court.
Once a ruling is made, the worker is paid their wages and allowances immediately.
The money came from the company’s bank guarantees, and if that is not enough, more retrieved from the confiscated property would pay the rest, said Mr Al Zaabi.
In their new jobs, the workers were given salaries and benefits equal to their old jobs “and some offers are even better”, said Hadi Muhsen, the head of investigations at the ministry.
The ministry also cancelled fines that were placed on their labour cards after they had expired.
“By the end of February, all the workers were transferred to their new jobs,” Mr Muhsen said.
The case was a good example of the services the human rights office has provided since it opened in 2009, said Ms Albedwawi.
Last year the office received 251 complaints and inquiries on issues including rights of prisoners, kidnapped children and residency problems for expatriates.
It also launched internet meetings for divorced parents and children who were overseas, or who were blocked from seeing them.
“The electronic meeting was already applied in other countries, so we thought why not adopt it here,” said Ms Albedwawi. “We held a forum with judges and some divorced parents to study how it could be implemented.
“We are still studying with the IT department how to make sure that both parents are cooperating with the online visits and allowing the other party to see the children virtually. Some could log on but had to keep the camera on the ceiling, for instance.”
The office has also produced a film about the legal rights of disabled people.
The film was distributed to special needs organisations and centres, and will be available on the ADJD website, in addition to a Braille publication of the handicapped laws, said Salah Al Junaibi, head of communications at the judicial department.
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