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Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1) - United Arab Emirates (RATIFICATION: 1982)

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Article 2 of the Convention. Exceptions to the limits on normal daily and weekly hours of work. With reference to its previous comment concerning exceptions to the limits on normal daily and weekly hours of work, the Committee had noted that section 65 of the Labour Relations Law (Federal Law No. 8 of 20 April 1980 on the regulation of labour relations) specifies that normal working hours could be increased to nine hours per day in commercial activities, hotels, hairdressing, guard duty and other tasks where such increase is authorized by order of the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs. It had further noted that the Minister of Labour had not issued any Order which authorizes the extension of working hours in any other tasks other than those specified in this section. In this regard, the Committee wishes to recall that Article 2(b) of the Convention permits the daily limit of eight hours to be exceeded by no more than one hour only in the case where the hours of work on one or more days of the week are less than eight hours. The Committee therefore once again requests the Government to take all necessary measures to ensure that any ministerial order, which might be issued under section 65 of the Labour Relations Law with a view to increasing from eight to nine the maximum number of hours of work per day in any public or private industrial undertaking, would only allow the variable distribution of working hours within a week under the circumstances set out in Article 2(b) of the Convention.

Article 6. Permanent and temporary exceptions and list of exceptions. In previous reports, the Government had indicated that it was preparing draft legislation amending the Labour Relations Law with respect to preparatory or complementary work at industrial undertakings. The Committee would appreciate receiving information on whether the Government still intends to amend the Labour Relations Law of 1980 with a view to regulating permanent exceptions and temporary exceptions from normal hours of work and requests the Government to keep it informed in this regard.

Furthermore, in its previous comment, the Committee had noted that according to section 69 of the Labour Relations Law, the number of actual hours of overtime could not exceed two a day, unless work was necessary to prevent substantial loss or a serious accident or to eliminate or alleviate its consequences. In this regard, the Committee recalls that Article 6(1)(b) of the Convention allows for temporary exceptions (overtime) only in exceptional cases of pressure of work while Article 6(2) requires the maximum number of additional hours to be kept within reasonable limits prescribed in line with the general goal of the Convention which is to establish the eight-hour day and the 48-hour week as the legal standard of hours of work in order to provide protection against undue fatigue and to ensure reasonable leisure and opportunities for recreation and social life. The Committee requests the Government to take the necessary measures in order to bring its legislation in conformity with this Article of the Convention.

Article 8(1)(c). Record keeping. The Committee notes the Government’s indication that through inspection visits, the labour inspectorate seeks to review the registers on working hours, and to verify that they are calculated on the basis of 48 hours a week. In this regard, the Committee had previously noted the Government’s indication that the Ministry of Labour had issued a circular that requires all undertakings and establishments to keep a record of all additional hours worked by their employees. The Committee once again requests the Government to provide a copy of this circular in its next report.