Opinion | Columnists
Maids need bank accounts too
The simplest way to solve the dispute between domestic helpers and employers is by depositing their salaries in a bank account.
- By Hanan Esmail Al Sahlawi, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:37 June 18, 2007
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Whenever a person is accepted for a new job one of the employment procedures is to provide a valid bank account number to the employer. This procedure is undertaken to facilitate the transfer of employees' salaries without any delay on a monthly basis. Accordingly, employees could set specific dates for settling their payments such as loan instalments, personal expenses and the like. I know that this procedure is familiar to both employers and employees and it is like stating the obvious. Unfortunately some employees still receive their salaries in cash and not on a fixed day.
The group of employees I am referring to is the maids who are widely employed in the country yet the regulations concerning them are preliminary.
Upon the arrival of maids, a medical test is conducted for them, they are given some vaccines and finally their visa is processed. They are supposedly then given their salaries on a monthly basis in cash. But because this procedure is conducted manually then something might go wrong such as the household forgetting to withdraw enough cash for the maid at the salary due date or the maid misplacing the cash given to her or a couple of other negative scenarios that I am sure has happened with any of us.
After the salary is given to the maids, the whole amount is either saved by them, probably hidden somewhere in their rooms, or a partial amount is transferred to their families. Maids usually ask their households to do the transfer for them either through banks or money exchanges. Some households take their maids personally when they do the transfer for them and others do not.
A lot of cases are raised against households by their maids claiming that they did not receive their salaries for a number of months. On the other hand, the households assure that they did pay the salaries and that the maids are raising false claims against them. The truth in these cases cannot be uncovered because there is no proof to back the claim.
Simplest way
The simplest way to solve this issue is by adding a clause to maids' contracts that requires households to help their maids in opening bank accounts. Through these accounts households would be able to transfer their maids' salaries automatically at a specified date each month.
The creation of such accounts would also relieve households from the constant transfer requests of their maids to their families. And, most importantly, the history of salary payments and transfers could be used as clear proof in case a disagreement takes place.
By providing this service to the maids the government would be regulating the labour law and the banks would be making more business, so it is a win-win situation for all the parties involved.
Hanan Esmail Al Sahlawi is an Emirati columnist based in Abu Dhabi.
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