Damac Properties in Dubai Fail to Pay Employees Full Settlement on Dismissal
If you were beginning to believe the press releases stating that Dubai is immune from the financial crisis, the latest report from Gulf news should disabuse you of that notion. Employees fired by Damac last month due to the financial crisis are not being paid their full settlement. According to former employees of Damac Properties, the management calculated their three-month notice amount on their basic salaries, in contravention of the law.
Ahmad (name changed upon request), a civil engineer, who worked for the company for 18 months, said his contract was terminated on November 10 and that he had to chase the management for four weeks before receiving his final settlement, in which the notice pay was calculated on the total salary.
“When I went to collect the cheque, I was surprised to find out that they had issued a second settlement calculated on the basic salary, and I was told that the changes were based on adjustments in labour regulations,” said Ahmad, who will lose Dh20,000 of his end-of-service benefits if he agrees to the modified settlement.
According to the labour law, if the employer breaks a limited contract he or she has to compensate the employee for any prejudice the latter sustained for a period of no more than three months of the total salary.
An official source at the Ministry of Labour told Gulf News: “The law is clear on this issue. If an employer breaks a limited contract without a legitimate reason, he has to pay three months of the total salary. Any worker who is in dispute with his or her employer can file a complaint at the Ministry of Labour, and if an amlicable settlement is not reached the case will be referred to court.”
Precedent
Advocate Mohammad Ebrahim Al Shaiba of Al Bahar Advocates and Legal Consultants told Gulf News that the precedent set by the cassation courts carries more weight than the text of the law and previous rulings have forced employers in such cases to pay three months of total salary.
A statement sent to Gulf News bysaid that the company “follow all the guidelines as per the UAE Labour Law in its entirety,”.
“During these trying times our endeavour is to ensure that the exit for our employees is smooth. We are providing them with NOC (no-objection certificates) and assisting them with any help that they may require during this transfer process,” the statement said.
However, Damac Properties declined to comment on Gulf News’ questions on whether they had calculated the three-month notice on the total salary or the basic and on what provisions of the labour law did they base their decision.
The employees provided Gulf News of both the first proposed settlement and the modified one with the smaller amount.
Ahmad and many of his ex-colleagues refused to sign the final settlement papers and have asked for legal advice at the Ministry of Labour. But they fear that the company, in a retaliatory measure, would not give them NOCs, which is required for avoiding the six-month ban when changing jobs if they file a formal complaint.
Fahed, (name changed upon request), an engineer who came to Dubai last January to work for Damac, said that this settlement was not fair especially now that he had lost his jobs
“I really cannot afford to lose as much as Dh20,000, especially now that I am unemployed and have large of amount of debts. But at the same time I cannot afford to take this to court and wait for several months for the court verdict as I cannot support myself in the UAE for such a long time without a job,” said Fahed adding that he just wanted his rights as per the law.
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As an employee of this wretched company Damac one knows that this is probably one of the worst companies to work for and that it is probably the only company that profiteers from the misery of its own employees.
It has used every possible trick in the book to decieve both its customers and its employees.When it needed its employess it used it like slave labour by ensuring absolutely no exit possibilities(No NOC’s vendetta’sagainst employees for daring to leave etc) and its cheif perpertrator MP JOHN who was not so long ago in the employed in nondescruipt agency recruiting housemaids.He is now the 2nd most poweful man in the company after king sajwani himself.
Now it has resorted to profiteering even from employees who have been wrongly terminated for no fault of thiers by depriving them of thier rightful dues as per law.The company is now thinking of switching over all contracts from limited to unlimited contracts to ensure that employees get even lower payouts than possible with 3 month basic.The modus operandi is simple:Force all to sign unlimited contracts..fire them soon after …then pay only a month salary as per law as opposed to 3 months…
Looks like there is no law of the land if companies like these can get away with this…if its does the one shall make that the news travels all over the world to show to the world the scam that DAMAC is. The downfall of this company is now a foregone conclusion and it has only its owner and its henchmen MP John and the rookies in the business planning to blame.A toxic combination of arrogance and imcompetence has now proved fatal.This is a lesson to be learnt by all
Thanks for the comment whistleblower. I have a feeling we are going to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future.
Dubai’s property market is crashing harder than any, and there are +/- 3 million unwanted employees in the country.
You do the math…..
Whistleblower, what an excellent and accurate precis of the sh**hole of a company that trades under the name DAMAC Properties. The company is a toxic combination of lies, deceit and serious malpractices. How it’s ever survived this long I’ll never know. At least know the truth about the company is coming to light.
The two goons you mention that control the company via their petty little empires are a complete joke. I’m talking of course about MP JOHN (Head of Recruitment)and KARTHICK (Head of the ironically named dept, bearing in mind the current state DAMAC are in, namely ‘Business Planning’). Two people who have excelled at all the malpractices I’ve mentioned and hence have been promoted for this ‘good work’ by being given authority well, well above their true ability and status. I only hope for the sake of all the employees and ex-employees life’s these two low-life have ruined that one day they get their pay-back.
I came across another web blog today that listed out what’s said to be numerous projects in Dubai that DAMAC has recently cancelled. If this is true, it makes very disturbing reading for the thousands of investors who’ve already paid DAMAC their money for property on these projects. What chance is there of these investors ever seeing the billions of Dirhams they’ve alreday handed over to DAMAC for these projects?! Who’s looking into this?? Nobody. If DAMAC goes bust, as is possible, what will happen to all this money??
http://www.kippreport.com/kipp/2009/01/06/4974/
All the employers in Dubai are the same, very bad and very nasty. I was terminated by a consulting firm in Nov. 2008. The company changed the notice period from 3 months to 1 month in 20 Nov. 2008 and I recieved a letter of termination on 27 Nov. 2008 and I was paid 1 month + gratuity. Worst still, the company has splitted my salary into basic salary, car allowance, house allowance etc. in May 2008 to reduce the gratuity.
Dubai has all the shit companies, Ministry of Labour should look into the issue and close down all these companies.
As a recruiter who placed many people in dubai over the last 18 months I regulary hear that many people are not being paid when asked to leave.
In fact we are owed money by various developers including ones who claim to being the largest in The middle East !!!
They openly say “we have no money”
They who seem intent on knocking people and companies.
Dubai is potentially heading for a complete crash in credibility that could effect a bounce back when things improve worldwide.
The leaders of Dubai should stamp out this bad practice before it is too late
I just can completely agree with wistleleblowers comments about MP JOHN´s remarkable arrogance and incompetence, in my case, during a job interview.
We have to avoid this company..
I have been misled by DAMAC re a property in Abu Dhabi. I have paid 5% of the total price on the basis that it is a freehold property. They have sent me the contract later on after I made the first payment. To my big surprise, the contract was a “lease” contract!!! I asked for a refund as there is no contract but they’ve refused to refund my money. Please let me know what to do and how to file a complaint against them.
At the end of the day Dubai is a police state and does not know how to deal with Wester critics. The artificial boom had to end in this way.. Dubai = DisneyLand. Reality will be that tourism will not pick up the coming years with all the necessary implications. The rulers should have seen this come…….. No oil, less tourism, freedom etc why go to Dubai and sad part is that this place does not know how to deal with the situation…
N – Sorry – I can’t help. The developers are screwing all the smaller investors at the moment along with their ex-staff.
Mr Right – I know. And things are going from bad to worse. They are now talking about a new law to prevent journalists from reporting properly :
New laws in Dubai to stop negative press.
All,
I have never worked in the Dubai, UAE but from all the stories I heard, it is a fact that the country is moving in the wrong direction. No freedom, no stable law, people will move out of Dubai, but what about all the empty property? The bubble appears to burst sooner then later….. Would be interesting to know which newspapers actually reporting on these issues?
A few are starting to come clean, but many of them rely on substantial advertising from the developers -
http://blog.luxuryproperty.com/luxury-property-in-dubai-downturn-worse-than-expected-says-morgan-stanley/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=dubai&st=cse
I understand things are getting very bad there
I completely agree with Whistleblower; I used to be an employee of this doomed company a few months ago. This company is an absolute crappy place to work; the senior management should be flogged in public.
The so called 2nd in command MP John should actually be blacklisted in the whole of the emirate, I have also heard that he was arrested for sexually harassment of a colleague. There are so many unworthy people working in this company, especially in the IT department and recruitment. This company has not paid a single Dirham to the IT solutions provider for all the infrastructure and data center setup. Even the bloody furniture in this company has not been paid for. The whole company is only a huge eye wash. These guys have not delivered at all with regards to the property development.
One should join this company only if he/she is interested in making a career out of politics; they follow the principle of the banyan tree full of monkeys- each one below has to lick the ass of the person above. Such a spineless bunch of people work in this company. They look out for employees who are still under probation and sack them, there is no planning whatsoever- I believe Mr. Kartik who is the head of business planning is responsible for this. There are others in the recruitment department who are definitely hand in glove with this.
I am really glad that I am not a part of this “Soon to be extinct” company. I sincerely advice everyone who is looking at employment in the UAE to stay away from this company, it’s an absolute waste of time and intelligence.
I know this scam company Damac which calls itself a Real Estate Developer. A closer look reaveled to me that they have no ethics whatsoever and their only aim was to profiteer “at any cost”. They do not care for the employees, which is evident from the low quality of most of the employees and thereafter employees get shunted from one function to another even if they are not competant to carryout the role. The company has at senior levels master @sslick*r sychophants who only aim is to their Chairman i.e Hussain Sajwani happy. Hussain Sajwani is himself an unscrupulus scamster who went broke during the dotcom bust. Several investors lost money then and will lose now. Damac has launched over 40-45 odd projects and handedover about 5-6 and could hand over another 3-4 maybe. The rest are “cancelled” . Neil McLaughlin (Communications Head) might play with words like temporarily “on hold” or “frozen” or under re-design etc., but all this is bu11 sh!t. About 50% of the projects did not have an Escrow account to begin with and the money landed in the Corporate bank account and has been siphoned off. Although a single ESCROW account was opened for these projects later at RERA’s instance, it was too late in the day and money had already been moved out. So there is no way these projects will be completed, unless Hussain Sajwani brings in his personal fortune which is unlikely. The remaining projects have hardly sold and cannot be completed. The RERA is closing in on Damac asking them for info on the Escrow money. They have some crooked chaps on the payroll who have managed to from time to time confuse, stall or buy time from RERA but I hope RERA doggedly pursues them and brings them to book.
I have filed a case in Abu Dhabi court against DAMAC re the above subject. The ruling is at the end of this month.
oh my god. i was there, i lived the nightmare of this god awfull emirate state known as dubai.im thinking of starting a 12 step meeting for us that have experianced this terrible disaster.first step, admitted we where powerless over these liars and cheats, and that our lives had become unmanageable.
If you set one up – let me know and I will write about it
Dear all, GREAT news!!! I won the case against Damac. They have appealed but lost the appeal… The next step would be talking to the press. Any suggestions?
That is fantastic – drop me a line here and I will spread it all over the internet. http://internationalpropertyinvestment.com/contact-ipi
@Mark Knowles:
Hey Mark,
Can I give you a call if you are in UAE?
If not, can I send you an e-mail?
Having worked closely with the goons, they are just a bunch of pimps. They excel in supply of flesh.This is their core business. Real Estate just happened and they lapped it up.