MANAMA: Al-Asala, Bahrain’s second largest parliamentary bloc, is demanding the minister of labor step down for proposing labor market decisions that would affect businesses and increase expatriate workers on the island.
In a weekly majlis held by Al-Asala bloc, several business owners criticized Labor Minister Dr. Majeed Al-Alawi’s decision to allow foreign workers to switch jobs without the consent of their employees. The landmark decision, which is to come into effect from Aug. 1, aims to accord greater freedom to expatriate workers.
Under the new law, employers have no right to include in their employment contracts articles or clauses stipulating that employees can only leave at the end of their contracts.
“This decision will adversely affect firms and the economy. Foreign workers would get higher salaries which would further shoot the prices of products and services, clearly increasing inflation,” said MP Ibrahim Busandal.
Busandal added that the Labor Ministry failed to address the issue of around 25,000 runaway workers. “Influential people bought hundreds of workers and left them on the island. They collect money from them and now even citizens have started to rent out their commercial registrations to sell work visas. The role of the ministry to deal with this issue is questionable,” he said.
Ali Marhoon, from the Bahrain Construction Company, called on Al-Alawi to step down for his poor labor market decisions during the discussion. Al-Asala bloc is supporting the move. Al-Wefaq bloc recently called for a review of labor laws, particularly amendments to a clause in the law stating that a worker must be employed for at least two years before being allowed to switch jobs. Backing his stance, the labor minister said that last year over 3,000 non-Bahraini’s switched jobs without disrupting the local market.
Several rights group last year urged the labor minister to step down after he said in a regional conference that Gulf countries faced danger of an “Asian tsunami” because of the high numbers of migrant workers upon which Gulf countries rely.
More than 500,000 expatriates live in Bahrain, out of a total population of 1,040,000.
