Eid Al Adha and Hajj Leave in Annual Leave

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I have been working in a private company for 8 years 11 months. I went for an annual leave from 25/08/2015 to 17/09/2015 and extended my leave from 18/09/2015 to 30/09/2015 (13 days).

On the issue of those 13 days my company considered 5 days as paid leave (which was available in my account) and 8 days as unpaid leave (as I didn’t have a further balance at that time) There were Eid holidays from Sept 23 to Sept 27 (5 days) for my company.

So I asked my company that my unpaid leave should be 3 days and not 8 days. But personnel department told me that as per Kuwait Labour Law, holidays can be credited only, if I had annual leave balance that time.

Kindly let me know whether the statement of my company is correct. If not, what should I do to get the payment for those 5 days or get those days credited in my leave account.

Name withheld

Answer: Both of you are wrong.

First of all official holidays are the “property” of the employee — unless the company wants him to perform duty on that day — and he can do anything with those days, stay in the country or go out of the state.

Secondly, for Eid Al Adha and Hajj, the total holidays are four and not five.

Regardless of the fact whether you have a balance of leave or not you can be considered absent for those four days unless all these days fall within the unpaid leave which is not the case here.

This is because you had five days balance of annual leave — let’s consider that from Sept 18 to 22. And immediately after these come your four days of Eid holidays (not five because five for the govt sector only), from Sept 23 to Sept 26.

So, your unpaid leave will be for 4 days — Sept 27 to Sept 30. So, the company can deduct your pay for only 4 days.

This news has been read 7506 times!