DOHA: Some exchange houses have begun making preparations to be part of the proposed wage protection system (WPS).
The system, which is yet to be implemented, would make sure all private sector workers are paid salaries through electronic transfer.
Although the new labour law (No 1 of 2015) issued recently makes the system mandatory for the companies covered under it, it allows sufficient grace period for implementation.
Banks and financial institutions like exchange houses are to be made part of WPS network since the number of beneficiary workers is large. An official of an exchange house told this newspaper yesterday that although they had not yet been officially intimated, they were developing the “new product”.
He said when the system was introduced in the UAE some years ago, exchange houses were not made part of the WPS network, but later they were included.
Asked what happens to foreign workers who are here on ‘free visas’, or to runaway workers, once WPS comes into force, Al Zaman said the aim of the new labour law is to protect the right of the workers to be paid in time. “To what extent this law helps fight irregularities like payments to free visa and runway workers by their illegal employers could only be seen over time,” he said.
However, the new rule doesn’t seem to bother some illegal workers as they think their original sponsors could open salary accounts for them with financial institutions, as required by the law, and transfer their wages.
And they could return their employers the cash immediately after, said a ‘free visa’ worker. This is happening in the case of expatriates whose salaries are low and they want to show bigger salary transfers to be eligible to sponsor their families.
“Their sponsors transfer extra sums as part of their salary and that sum is returned to them.” A ‘free visa’ is a work visa for sale on which a foreign worker arrives after buying it and takes up work elsewhere illegally. In most cases, as per rule, a worker’s sponsorship is officially transferred from ‘free visa’ to a regular visa after a year. As for runaway workers, they can be paid wages by their illegal employers in cash. The Peninsula
