Another question on NOC.

We are grateful to the minister of Labor for ordering strict penalty against employers who delay salaries of their employees. This gives the employee the chance to change work permits to another employer without the consent of the defaulting employer while reserving his full rights for his previous job. I was hoping the same would happen to the condition of the No Objection Certificate (NOC) imposed on the foreign employee after the termination of his contract, which is unlawful according to the New Labor Law, Shariah and human rights. I am wondering why the ministry hasn’t order the relief of this unfair NOC condition imposed on foreign workers, while this may be more important than the delay of payment of a salary.

The reason is that the NOC issue involves other authorities. Probably the Ministry of Labor could not act unilaterally on this issue. By contrast, foreign missions exerted considerable pressure on the authorities to resolve the issue of unscrupulous employers not paying or delaying the salaries of their workers. The ministry understood and complied with the various requests to mend this situation and it ordered the new regulation in this concern. If the foreign missions exerted similar pressure on this issue perhaps there would be momentum in this regard. Urge your people to do that. Until then employees should strive to put in their contracts before signing them that the employer will provide a NOC upon satisfactory completion of their contractual obligations. That would be lawful and legal. What isn’t lawful or legal at this time is compelling employers to provide NOCs against their will.