UAE Labour Ban Help & New Law Coming Nov. 2016 (Dubai)

Hello Internations Dubai Group,

I hope all is well with everyone. Hoping I can get some help with your suggestions regarding a labour ban issue. I am an American citizen and my work colleague is a British citizen. Currently we are serving a 1 year labour ban. We joined an LLC marketing company here in Dubai in May Protected content had left the company in September Protected content than the 6 month period. They had processed our resident visa for the company which finalized in August Protected content .

The reason we left the company is back when we signed our original contracts in our home countries before coming to Dubai we were promised a contract with an Protected content per month salary, plus commissions, company car, and more. Upon arrival when we got our first month pay, we were shocked to see our salary was only Protected content . A major change from Protected content to Protected content . We were very upset and completely disappointed. We stuck it through the company a few months because of promises that the CEO had made to us, but ended up not being fulfilled. We left the company on good terms, had them provide us a NOC letter, termination letter, and full backing stating we are eligible for new employment.

A week later we came across a position for a very large and reputable company in the GCC region, attended an interview, and were both offered the jobs the next day. Upon processing the Visa for us from the new company they in turn received a labour ban notice for us.

Trying to get this resolved we went through every channel from our personal contacts, Tasheel office, Ministry of Labour and many others. We did a visa run to Oman to get our passport stamped in the 30 days of our labour cancellation, got an appeal letter typed and stamped with the submission of documentation approval from Tasheel, our NOC and termination letter from the previous company with no discrepancies for us to work for any other company, labour cancellation letter, employment identification information, offer letter from the new company (and salary is over Protected content per month), our education certificates of high school diploma (secondary school graduation), and other small documents here and there that we were told to get. These are documents we continue to get requested from the Ministry of Labour to get our ban lifted, and every time we get them and take them back they say that it is not necessary and you have to leave the country for 1 year and come back.

Partly I know it is our fault and we should have done more research into this but at this time nothing can be done, we are on our last straws, and funds are extremely tight. The reason we found out why the labour ban is on there is because first of all you need a worker tier level of 1,2, or 3 and an educational certificate to be submitted with your employer's visa. We both have our high school graduation or secondary school graduation diplomas, and both of us have completed our university 4 year or bachelor degrees. The company we worked for, did not submit our education certificate with this visa, even though we turned it into him, and out of good faith you would assume that they would, but they did not. This would have been overturned if our education certificates were turned in with the new law that took effect in January Protected content , but unfortunately cannot. Therefore we are on the brink of succumbing to the laws and going back home. Even though we don't want to. I know there is a loop hole that can bypass this labour ban if you work for a free zone company, which we are definitely applying for and going for interviews, but it is currently slow on decisions at the moment.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. To be honest we do not have the funds as well to pay for any services at the moment, but any pro-bono help would be heavily considered at this point for us if we can pay later once we are working again.

**We had also met with the director of the UAE Ministry of Labour last week and was kind to let us know, stating at the present moment the labour ban on us cannot be lifted at the moment, but did mention in November Protected content is a new law coming into effect. He did not know the date, but we are crossing our fingers. Apparently they have figured out that companies have been doing this for qualified candidates who should be receiving higher salaries have been documenting the employees at level 4 and 5 workers to avoid paying, so they are able to adjust the salary or pay structure at any time. The new law supposed to come into effect basically states that the candidate who has a high school graduation certificate or higher will not follow the ban, if submitted with a salary of Protected content or higher a month and a worker tier level of 1, 2, and 3. Which goes hand and hand with the new law that came out in January Protected content . If anyone has more insight into this please let me know or contact me by email or phone below. I greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Jason Viegas

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