Two Bills Seek to Cut Expat End-of-Service Costs

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Two parliamentary proposals would cut end-of-service costs for employers in Bahrain, one by ending the payment for domestic workers and the other by making the Labour Market Regulatory Authority pay it for foreign staff.

Parliament’s Services Committee is studying the first measure, drawn up by MP Maryam Al Sayegh. It would amend the Private Sector Labour Law and remove the gratuity owed to domestic staff when their employment ends.

The law now gives them half a month’s wage for each of their first three years of work and a full month’s wage for every year after that.

Gardeners, house guards, nannies, drivers and cooks employed by a householder or members of the family would also lose the payment.

Ms Al Sayegh said the bill was meant to ease the strain on Bahrainis with low incomes.

Domestic staff now earn between BD120 and BD180 a month in many cases, and sometimes more, she said. Pay had once commonly stood below BD100.

Hiring fees can top BD2,000. Families must then meet that bill, monthly wages and the end-of-service sum.

Ms Al Sayegh said the combined cost placed too great a burden on many households. Bahrain’s laws, she argued, should put citizens first while still taking account of foreign workers.

Giving priority to Bahrainis, above all those on low incomes, did not amount to discrimination, she said.

The second proposal, put forward by MP Mohammed Al Marafi, would keep the end-of-service award but shift the cost from employers to the LMRA.

It would amend Article 116 of the 2012 Private Sector Labour Law and require the authority to pay gratuities owed to non-Bahraini workers.

The explanatory note said the change would help Bahraini employers cut monthly costs, retain property and capital, and avoid further charges.

It linked the plan to rises in the sums employers pay to the Social Insurance Organisation.