Tag: Labour

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-Top News Arab News UAE News

New labour relations law comes into force in UAE

In a radical shift for the UAE’s employment market, a new Labour Law has come into effect today, February 2…reports Asian Lite News.

The amended labour laws, which were first outlined by the government in November, strengthens employees’ rights.

Over 3,420,000 Indian expats are estimated to be living in the UAE, which is over 38 percent of the total population of the UAE. A sizeable population are in the labour market, and this comes as especially good news for them, as the new law would protect them from harassment and the unlawful seizure of documents.

Dr. Abdulrahman Al Awar, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation

An outline of the new labour law

The new law’s amendments stipulate employers may not use any means of force against workers or use threats of penalty to make them work against their will.

The law also prohibits sexual harassment, bullying or any verbal, physical or psychological violence against workers by their superiors or colleagues and any type of discrimination based on race, colour, sex, religion, nationality or disability.

The amendments aim to ensure women’s equality and prohibit any discrimination against them, ensuring women should receive the same wage as men for the same work or for a job of equal value.

Moreover, the law introduces new work models to meet employers’ needs for workers and reduce costs, including full-time, part-time, temporary and flexible work models.

The new law further stipulates that the term of fixed employment contracts must not exceed three years, which could be extended or renewed for similar or shorter periods any number of times.

Dr. Abdulrahman Al Awar, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation

Paid leave, compensation, and housing

The law stipulates workers are entitled to one paid leave day every week, with the possibility of additional weekly leave days upon the company’s own discretion, and introduces a five-day or a three-day paid bereavement leave, in addition to the five-day parental leave.

The law’s amendments include an article stipulating citizen workers are entitled to an end-of-service compensation upon the end of their service, in line with legislation regulating pensions and social security in force in the country.

The law regulates the duties of employers, such as providing adequate housing, means of prevention, and capacity and skills development training.

ALSO READ: UAE to roll out its first-ever corporate tax

Working hours and sustainability

Moreover, the law also regulates the duties and responsibilities of employees, such as respecting working hours, maintaining good ethics and behaviour, and seeking to improve their professional skills.

The new law represents progress in the efforts to improve the national labour market’s sustainability.

Labour statistics

Recent statistics issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation revealed the number of registered private sector workers totalled 4,903,612 at the end of 2021, with the 30 to 34 age group being the most employed, followed by the 35-39 and 25-29 age groups.

The number of private sector facilities registered with the ministry at the end of 2021, excluding companies in free zones, amounted to 373,966, an increase of 22,999 compared to 2020.

According to statistics, the construction sector leads in terms of the number of workers, amounting to 1,301,359, followed by the trade sector.

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Australia News World

SPECIAL: Australia Faces Severe Labour Shortage

About four in 10 Australian businesses are experiencing significant impacts from the Covid-induced labour shortages, new research by one of the nation’s leading banks revealed on Tuesday…reports Asian Lite News

The Business Insight Report, released by the National Australia Bank (NAB), was based on responses from about 1,600 businesses across a broad range of industries from mid-November to mid-December last year, reports Xinhua news agency.

NAB CEO Ross McEwan said bringing talent into Australia would be the key to alleviating the employment situation.

“Australian businesses are facing significant skilled and unskilled labour shortages. Almost every employer I talk to, from cafes, tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing, is saying ‘we can’t get workers’,” McEwan said.

“To get the economy really firing we will need to bring people into Australia and make sure, as a nation, we’re building a skilled workforce for the future,” he said.

The report said that 38 per cent of medium-sized businesses and 37 per cent of larger firms viewed labour shortages as being a “very significant issue”, compared with 31 per cent of small businesses.

Lacking trade workers (35 percent) and professionals (32 per cent) are the most common types of the labour shortage, according to about one in three Australian firms.

ALSO READ: Omicron Rocks Australian Healthcare Systems

By state, Western Australia (WA) had the most pressing need for workers with 44 per cent of businesses saying labour shortages had made a very significant impact over the past three months.

At the other end of the scale, only 24 per cent of businesses in the island state of Tasmania reported such a problem.

WA also leads in expectations of labour shortages over the next 12 months (43 per cent), followed by New South Wales, Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory (all 39 per cent), South Australia and Northern Territory (36 per cent) and Tasmania (20 per cent).

McEwan said that data scientists, digital experts and technology skills were in high demand right across the economy in Australia.

“At NAB, we’re doing a lot of work to retrain and invest in our workforce and we now have more than 2,000 colleagues who are certified cloud-computing practitioners,” he added.

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-Top News London News UK News

Starmer pledges ‘serious plan’ for government

Throughout the 89-minute speech at the Labour Party conference, Sir Keir Starmer was heckled repeatedly by angry Labour activists waving red cards and interrupting speech, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk

Leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday said his party will never again go into an election without a “serious plan for government.”

In a first speech addressing full Labour conference since becoming party leader 17 months ago, Sir Keir said the country faced a “big moment” that “demands leadership” – and as prime minister he would provide it, according to a BBC report.

Sir Keir set out new policies on mental health, education and housing, but it was also a highly personal speech about his own background and values.

In an 89-minute speech, the Labour leader got a standing ovation, but was heckled by some left-wingers.

Sir Keir told those barracking him in the Brighton Centre that he was about “changing lives” not “shouting slogans”, to cheers from other delegates.

With the party having lost four general elections in a row, the last one by the biggest margin since the 1930s, Sir Keir attempted to distance himself from the policies of ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn.

While he did not mention his more left-wing predecessor by name, he said: “We will never under my leadership go into an election with a manifesto that is not a serious plan for government.”

“It will not take another election defeat for the Labour party to become an alternative government in which you can trust. That’s why it has been so important to get our own house in order this week and we have done that,” he said.

After a week dominated by rows with the left, Sir Keir urged activists to come together to beat the Conservatives, at a time when energy bills are rising, petrol supplies are running short and the economy is recovering from the pandemic.

He said it will be Labour’s national mission over the next decade, “to fit out every home that needs it, to make sure it is warm, well-insulated and costs less to heat and we will create thousands of jobs in the process.”

“I can also pledge that we will also introduce a Clean Air Act and everything we do in government will have to meet a “net zero” test to ensure that the prosperity we enjoy does not come at the cost of the climate,” he said.

Sir Keir described his parents as “the two rocks of my life”, saying his father, a toolmaker, had given him a “deep respect for the dignity of work”, the BBC reported.

He contrasted his life with that of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom he described as a “trickster”, a “trivial man” and a “showman with nothing left to show.”

“It’s easy to comfort yourself that your opponents are bad people. But I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man. I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick,” he said.

Sir Keir slammed Johnson’s address to the United Nations last week on “clearing up the mess.”

He said: “Let me quote what the Prime Minister said to the United Nations last week: “We believe that someone else will clear up the mess we make because that is what someone else has always done”.

He told Johnson to “either get a grip or get out of the way and let us clear up this mess.”

ALSO READ-Starmer vows to get Labour back in business

READ MORE-Starmer isolates after his child tests Covid positive

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan Asia News

Countless Afghan kids work on streets due to poverty, war

The report also indicated a 37 per cent increase in the number of women casualties while a 23 percent spike in child casualties compared to last year….reports Asian Lite News

The continued brutal war, insurgency and extreme poverty in Afghanistan have forced countless number of children to resort to child labour and work on streets to earn livelihood for their families, instead of going to school.

Civilians including children are bearing the brunt of war in Afghanistan. A UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report released in April documented 1,783 civilian casualties (573 killed and 1,210 injured) in the first quarter of 2021 which indicates a 29 per cent increase against the same period of last year, reports Xinhua news agency.

The report also indicated a 37 per cent increase in the number of women casualties while a 23 percent spike in child casualties compared to last year.

Although there is no official statistics on the number of child labour, the number of vulnerable children in Afghanistan, according to local media reports, has increased from 3 million to 5 million.

Omar, 11, is one of the thousands of Afghan children who lost their parents in the endemic war and has been forced to work on Kabul streets to earn a livelihood for his five-member family.

Washing cars in Omid Sabz locality, Omar said the ongoing war has deprived him of going to school.

Afghanistan kids

“I am busy in car washing from dawn to dusk and roughly earn some 150 afghani ($1.9) daily to support my family,” he told Xinhua.

Another boy Abdul Azim, 13, who scavenges garbage buckets on the outskirts of Kabul city, told Xinhua that he was “the only bread earner of the family and have no choice but work and earn something”.

“On average I can earn around 180 afghani ($2.3) everyday and support my family.”

Ghulam Haider Jilani, the deputy for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, said recently that the government would do its best to solve the problems of child labour in the country.

Jilani said the budget for children protection had increased from 20 million afghani last year to 52 million afghani this year.

ALSO READ: Is Taliban Supremo Haibatullah Akhundzada alive?

Categories
-Top News Columns UK News

Starmer’s Struggles To Engage With Labour Ranks & Files

When a person does not start a life, they were expecting, there is dissent. Labour must go to the grassroots to encounter this dissent. When we talk about grass roots, the leader of the Labour party must be from the grassroots than from a privileged background … writes Taha Coburn-Kutay

Labour lost one of its safe seat Hartlepool under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer.  He failed to keep the Labour voters in the fold. Where did the disconnect happen? The Labour party should be asking itself this question and in retrospect should go back not too much into the distant past but about couple of decades. It is my belief that every nation’s make, or break is in the hands of the students and youngsters of a country. After Tony Blair took power in 1997, his government levied a fee of £1000 as higher education fees and subsequently increased it to £3000 in 2006 during his second term.

Sir Keir Starmer

The Conservative and Liberal Democrats increased the fee to £9000 in 2010. When you ask the students about the fee issue, they blame the Labour government more than the Conservative Liberal Democrats because the fee increase was initiated by Labour.

What is seen in the media is for optics but not the ground reality. Majority of students cannot afford the £9000 fee and turn to student loans which is turn eventually become bad debt for the exchequer because most of these students are not able to get a job straight out of university. This is because when the student took a course to study, they were not sure of the course and halfway through the course realise they do not want to carry on and drop out. Eventually they do not have the skills to get a job of their choice and cannot pay their loans back which then has a negative effect on their credit history. I have explained this because this is where the problem lies and starts from to begin.

When a person does not start a life, they were expecting, there is dissent. Labour must go to the grass roots to encounter this dissent. When we talk about grass roots, the leader of the Labour party must be from the grass roots than from a privileged background. The world is experiencing a right wing thought process and this needs to change.

The Fabian society started in 1884 and gave the United Kingdom a thought process which changed the country after the second world war when Prime Atlee’s government came to power in 1945. Maybe we need the Fabian society to come with a fresh though process for the present time and bring youngster to the forefront. The dissent must be heard at the grassroots whether it is the students or workers across the UK. There must be a strategy to work on the dissent which is found through the research work. By passing mere statements in the media and changing a few officials will not get the party back together.

Indian-origin Labour MPs – Virendra Sharma and Tan Dhesi

The unity of the union is at risk where Scotland is demanding a vote for independence and Welsh youngsters have started voicing for an independence vote too. We have seen rioting in the recent past in Northern Ireland. These issues must be addressed head-on by the Labour party or face another humiliating defeat in the next general elections.