Bahrain Labour Law regarding Redundancy

Dear Mr Pai,

If i am right you are taking about "End of service indemnity" or "severance pay" ? if yes this comes under Bahrain Labour Law and not a company's labour law, I am sure you can go ahead and clear it up with LMRA regarding the same.

T&R
Arjun

This is the end of service indemnity. It is part of Bahrain Labour law.

This is the extract from Bahrain Labour Law:

Article (116):
A worker who is not subject to the provisions of the Social Insurance Law shall be entitled upon the termination of his employment to a leaving indemnity at the rate of half month’s wage for each of the first three years of employment and one month’s wage for each of the following years in service. A worker shall be entitled to receive his leaving indemnity for fractions of the year in proportion to the period spent in the employer’s service.

Thanks Farhaz & Simboy for your respective posts. No, I am not talking about "end of service indemnity" or "severance" pay. Apart from this, there existed an internal company policy which gifted the employee for their loyalty and service recognition for each number of service year they completed with the company - to the maximum of 24 years service. But of late,(after my & some other employees who have completed 20+ service years with the company), they have now changed the policy saying that the benefit would now accrue only to the employee who retires from the company. - which I may possibly not achieve - for whatever reasons.
Does that mean that I now stand to lose the benefit after having completed 25+ years of service(which existed earlier - and only recently changed). Is there any Bahrain labour law which protects & comes to the rescue of the employee in cases such as these?

Any updates or know how on this will be appreciated.

Ashok Pai

Dear Ashok.

Thanks for the clarification. Now I understand your dilemma.

The only time Bahrain Law will come to your aid is if such a policy is spelt out clearly in your contract of employment.

Any other payment the company makes is purely at its own discretion and it is at liberty to decide if such payments will be made or not.

If you still feel this payment is something that you were working for all these years and you relied on it based on the company's past practice, then you could speak to a lawyer and see if they could somehow find a legal remedy for you - but it will be a long shot and perhaps costly.

Good luck

Dear Ashok,

I Agree with Farhaz on this point, but i guess it would'nt hurt to go to LMRA and ask for a opinion regarding the same.

Good luck!

T&R
Arjun

Well this is sad that this kind of thing happened on the first place.This sounds kind of injustice.Yes there are many labour laws which will help, such laws were first adapted by countries like France and Germany called as convention collective laws , I suggest you check for the same in your area.