Kuwait Times, Tuesday, Sep 22, 2020 | Safar 05, 1442
Kuwait expats lament non-payment of salary despite working from home
Kuwait:
John was told to work from home during the lockdown, but he did not
receive his salary. To add insult to injury, he was asked to hand over his ATM
card in order for the company to deposit his salary in the bank and withdraw it
a few moments later. So John ended up without any salary for four months,
although he worked from home.
Many companies have fired thousands of employees, cut salaries of others and
forced many to take unpaid leave to counter the financial impact of the
coronavirus pandemic. The parliament discussed the problem in March on how to
deal with the impact on workers, including proposals to reduce salaries of
private sector employees by up to 50 percent, but the draft law to reduce
salaries was rejected in August.
“This is really unfair. I work for nothing? I told them I am not giving them my
ATM card, but the mandoub threatened I would be fired,” John said, using the
Arabic word for ‘representative’, referring to the company employee responsible
for handling labor-related works. “So in April, May, June and July, the company
did not give us any salary.
In May, they faced a problem at the [Public Authority for Manpower] because they
could not renew their permit. To open the file, they needed to pay our salaries.
So they took our ATM cards in order to deposit the money and withdraw it at the
same time. It will appear to the bank that we got the salary, but the reality is
it only passes through our bank accounts and we did not get anything.”
Legal protection
Kuwait’s labor law provides protection to private sector workers against
non-payment of salary. Employees can report such cases to the Public Authority
of Manpower, who would then contact the company in question and request bank
statements of its employees to make sure that all staff are paid on time. If the
company is found to have failed to pay its employees, the manpower authority
suspends its file in the system, making them unable to process any labor-related
transactions unless they pay their staff in full.
However, many companies circumvent this condition by depositing the salaries in
employees’ bank accounts, and then require staff to return the money back, often
threatening them with termination and other retaliatory measures should they
refuse to cooperate.
John works as a store controller at an electrical shop in Shuwaikh. He received
his August salary, and said maybe he will get paid for September too. “But I’ve
been working from April to July at home, yet I was not paid. They only started
paying us by August, so my work during the time our company was closed is not
counted? Why did they ask me to work then,” he demanded.
Another case of non-payment of salary is of workers in the children
entertainment sector. A majority of operations in this field, including cinemas,
are yet to open. Zeny and her colleagues complained of non-payment of salaries
since April. “They gave us half the salary in March and April, then from May to
July, [we received] no salary.
We were called by the company to report to work at the end of July amid hopes of
opening soon, but they were not allowed to reopen. So, it means we have no
salary until now. We were told to accompany our mandoub to the ATM to withdraw
money to appear that our company is paying our salaries, while in fact they us
gave nothing. We have not received salaries from April to August,” she said.
“It is painful to see your money in the bank, supposedly your salary from April
to August, but they only deposited it in the bank and took it back,” she said.
“Don’t we have families to feed? In an effort to earn some money, I go with my
colleague to clean houses of Kuwaitis for KD 1 per hour. At least I can get
something and thank God my husband is working now, so he is paying for rent and
food,” she said.
30 percent off
Lito, another worker, mentioned his company took at least 30 percent of their
salaries from April to July 2020. “My company deducted 30 percent of my salary
from April to June. For me, I understand their decision on the matter – it’s
about money and business. They also have to balance expenses against profit.
However, I hope we can get the money later, when the company gets business
back,” he said.
Until now there are raging debates on whether employees are entitled to wages
during the mandatory closure of private establishments by the state as a
precautionary measure following the outbreak of COVID-19. A parliament committee
had discussed a draft law stipulating that those affected by the anti-coronavirus
measures including those who had to completely or partially shut their
businesses can agree with employees to reduce their salaries throughout the
suspension period up to 50 percent. However, the draft law was not approved,
which means all employers should follow and adhere to the Kuwait labor law.
There are no official statistics for the number of workers who have lost their
jobs in Kuwait during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, but unofficial estimations
indicate that private companies have already terminated hundreds of thousands of
employees, a vast majority of whom are expatriates, or have taken other measures
such as cutting employees’ salaries and forcing many to take unpaid leaves.