Abu Dhabi court obliges firm to pay Dhs252,000 to employee for pending wages and gratuity

Abu Dhabi Labour Court of First Instance obligated a company to pay Dhs384,301 to an employee after the company he had been working for refused to pay his end-of-service gratuity and evaded paying his monthly wages for several months.

Earlier, an employee filed a lawsuit against the company he worked for, in which he requested the court to obligate the company to pay him several months’ worth of back wages totaling Dhs252,000, an end-of-service gratuity for approximately 12 years of employment totaling Dhs186,544 and the incurred fees, expenses, and lawyer’s fees.

The employee pleaded that he joined the company in 2012 under an open-ended contract for a total salary of Dhs26,250 and a basic salary of Dhs12,800, noting that the employment relationship ended last year.

The court explained that according to Article 912/1 of the Civil Transactions Law, it is legally stipulated that an employer must pay a worker his agreed-upon wage as soon as he has performed his work.

In the absence of evidence of payment or agreement on the wage amount, a court can determine and order the payment of the wages.

An employer is obligated to pay wages to his employees on the agreed-upon dates in accordance in accordance with the terms, conditions and procedures specified in the executive regulations of this decree-law.

Wages will be paid in UAE dirhams and may be paid in another currency if agreed upon between the two parties in the employment contract.

As the company failed to pay the remaining wages demanded, the employee is entitled to Dhs252,000.

The court further explained that paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 6 of Article 51 of Federal Decree-Law no. 33 for 2021 that a full-time foreign worker, who completed a year or more in continuous service, shall be entitled to end of service benefits calculated according to the basic wage as follows: A) A wage of 21 days for each year of the first five years of service and B) A wage of 30 days for each year exceeding such period.

A foreign worker shall be entitled to a benefit for parts of the year in proportion to the period spent at work, provided that he completed one year of continuous service but the unpaid days of absence from work shall not be included in the calculation of the service term.

A foreign worker’s end of service benefits in its entirety must not exceed two years’ wage, provided that it is calculated according to the last basic wage the worker was entitled to.

Since this was the case and the employee’s service period was 11 years, 10 months and one day, the amount he is entitled to as a bonus calculated on the basis of the basic wage of Dhs12,800 as stipulated in the contract shall be Dhs132,301.