We are a group of employees working in a private establishment for more than 3 years; currently, the establishment is sold by the owner to another person, five months later the new owner terminated our contracts which will expire in May 2014. We claimed our end of service rights from the new owner but he told us that he is not responsible for such rights because we did work with him only for 5 months. He also told us they both agreed that the old sponsor will pay our dues. We called our old sponsor to get our rights; he told us that the new sponsor is responsible as per the Labour law. Our question here is; as per the labour law, who is responsible to pay our labour right. Please advise.
I would like to clarify to the questioners that Federal Labour Law no. 8 of 1980, article no. 126 states the following: “Where a change occurs in the form or legal status of the establishment, contracts of employment that are valid at time of the change shall remain in force between the new employer and the workers of the establishment, and their service shall be deemed to be continuous both the original employer and the new employer shall be jointly liable for a period of six months for the discharge of any obligations resulting from contracts of employment during the period preceding the change; after the expiry of this period the new employer shall solely bear liability”. Therefore, the Labour Law does not entitle the original employer and the new one to agree on breaching the above article and therefore pursuant to the above article, the questioners in this event may demand either original employer or the new employer to pay them the labour rights.
