Good news for Filipinos and other expatriate workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE): Starting next year, foreign workers there with an expired job contract may obtain a new work permit and transfer to another employer without facing the six-month ban period and without the consent of his sponsor. UAE Minister of Labor Saqr Gobash made the announcement of the landmark resolution on Saturday, according to the government-run Emirati News Agency, signaling the Middle East country’s efforts towards totally dismantling the much maligned sponsorship system. Based on the resolution, an expatriate worker will be granted a new employment permit at the end of his contract with his employer without following the six-month employment ban on two conditions: the work relationship must have ended cordially, and the worker should have worked for the employer for at least two years. Currently, expatriate workers in UAE are required to leave the country after finishing their employment contracts and are not allowed to seek employment there for a period of six months. A worker may also change jobs if the employer fails to abide by his legal and contractual obligations, or if the worker has no responsibility in the premature termination of the contract. The resolution also identifies three cases where the worker may secure a work permit without fulfilling the condition of working for at least two years with the employer:
When joining his new job, the worker should be classified in the first, second or third professional class and that his new salary should not be less than Dh 12,000, Dh 7,000 and Dh 5,000, respectively; The employer has been found to be not complying with his legal and labor obligations towards the worker, or the worker has no role in terminating the work relationship; and The worker is transferring to another firm that the original employer owns or partly owns. Gobash said the new measures aim to “infuse broader flexibility in the labour market and strike a balance in the contractual relationship between the employer and worker." “The Ministry will only interfere in the employer-worker contractual relationship if it detects infringement in obligations stated in the labour contract," he explained, adding that the ministry remains committed to guaranteeing the rights of both parties legally. He also said the new measures were subject to dialogue and consultation with local stakeholders in the implementation of directives for crafting policies that promote labor market development and curb any malpractices. Pinoy migrants’ group welcomes new policy Migrants’ rights group Migrante welcomed the new labor policy, which it said will put an end to the sponsorship system that is nothing more than “indentured servitude." “We welcome the move by the UAE government to ease its ‘sponsor’ rule as it would give leeway and freedom to expatriate workers in terms of travel, and the opportunity to look for a better job within the UAE," said Migrante-UAE secretary general Nhel Morona. Morona explained that under the sponsorship system, hired expatriate workers cannot easily transfer from one employer to another, as they are bound to finish the contract unless they resign. According to Migrante, the sponsorship system serves as the legal basis for one’s residency and employment in Arab states in the Middle East, and has become the cause of abuses against expatriate workers. Migrant workers cannot enter, work, change jobs or leave the country until they have permission from their sponsor, usually a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) citizen, company or branch of government, the group explained. “The sponsorship system requires that an expatriate can work only for the sponsor and is entirely dependent on the contract in order to remain in the country," John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East coordinator, said. “In essence and in practice, the sponsorship system is nothing but an indentured servitude," he added. 600,000 Pinoy workers in UAE The sponsorship system is widely enforced in the Arab states in the Middle East, except for Bahrain which was the first to abolish it in August 2009. Kuwait, meanwhile, vowed it will do the same in February next year. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has earlier urged GCC member-states to reform their sponsorship systems and introduce a minimum wage for foreign workers. Some 15 million migrant workers live in the six Arab states of the Gulf, about 40 percent of the region’s total population, the ILO estimates Records from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas estimates there are over 600,000 Filipino workers in the UAE as of December 2009. In the last seven years, some 810,000 Filipino workers have been deployed in UAE, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. - KBK, GMANews.TV 
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