MPs voice displeasure on salary cut and forced leave

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KUWAIT CITY, May 5: The amendment to the private labor law to reduce salaries of employees was met with widespread opposition by parliament members.

The Cabinet Ministers decided to add a new article to Law No. 6 of 2010 regarding work in the private sector, and assigned the Minister of Social Affairs and the Minister of State for Economic Affairs Mariam Aqeel to review the final version of draft law.

The Ministry of Affairs grants the right to approve business owners in unusual circumstances, such as disasters and general misfortunes on the following measures:

1- Granting workers special leave with a reduced wage, or reducing wages that is not less than the minimum wage or without wages during the period determined by the Ministry as a period of economic crisis based on mutual agreement.

2- Reducing employees by paying them all their dues within the period specified by the Ministry as economic crisis and returning them to their country at the employer’s expense.

Sources revealed that this will allow business owners to reduce wages up to 50%, and also terminate services of Kuwaitis working in private sectors which will double the unemployment enabling the employer to reduce the salaries of employees without legal hassles.

On the other hand, MPs warned to prevent prejudice to the salaries of Kuwaitis in the private sector, stressing the need to form a representative front to prevent the reduction of their salaries.

MP Youssef Al-Fadala, MP Abdel-Karim Al-Kandari, MP Saleh Ashour, MP Abdullah Fahhad, MP Mohammed Al-Huwaila, MP Osama Al-Shaheen, MP Nasser Al-Dossary, MP MP Majid Al-Mutairi voiced their rejection stating that any amendment to the labor law of the private sector must be in the interest of national employment specially as there are many Kuwaitis working in the private sector.

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