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Emirati AJAD Facilities Management denies employees their rights

AJAD
REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Abu Dhabi- based AJAD Facilities Management company has refrained from paying the salaries of its employees for several months, ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies said.

The London-based think tank highlighted that AJAD’s website lauds the careers that people can have with their company, but this just hides the dark truth of the exploitation that many can suffer in the UAE.

With reported revenue of approximately $5 million per year it is well within their capability to pay loyal, respectful, and hardworking employees, but the reality is that vulnerable migrant workers have been ignored, ImpACT said.

One of these workers, Bashir Katendi, is a victim of unethical business practices in the UAE that have caused horrific abuses of black African migrant workers in the country including forcible deportation, abuse and denial of rewards for long months of work.

Despite his many pleas on behalf of his family, which do not always get the courtesy of even a reply, his now former employer, AJAD Facilities Management, have still not paid him.

Bashir is still owed 5,600 AED, dirham, which is more than £1,100 GBP, a considerable sum in his home country of Uganda to which he was deported under extreme and sudden circumstances.

After many months he is still waiting for AJAD to honour their debts to him. He has been placed into a Catch 22 position where the company are refusing to pay him until such time as he produces a police report on his deportation, yet he cannot obtain one from outside of the UAE.

Bashir showed Impact copies of his contacts with AJAD, including the official work contract he signed with Mr. Nasser Al-Suwaidl, CEO and founder of AJAD.

Robert Oulds, Executive Director of ImpACT International states, “Many do not realise that companies such as AJAD Facilities Management are reneging on their contractual obligations to pay their workers who have been exploited in the apartheid state that is the United Arab Emirates.

“That country has an appalling human rights record, uses spyware and censorship to persecute human rights activists and uses state security services to harass, imprison, and defraud black people in the emirate.”

ImpACT demanded that AJAD to pay the wages owed to its workers, including overtime wages, and fulfill its debts to expatriate workers, including payment of amounts owed to former and current employees working for the company.

The think-tank urged the ILO to investigate the reasons why AJAD and other companies in the UAE have avoided paying the salaries of their former employees and workers for an extended period, and to hold those responsible to account.

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