(29 Sep 2015) LEAD IN
The United Arab Emirates is introducing long-awaited labour reforms.
The changes aim to tighten employment agreements for millions of temporary migrant workers who make up the bulk of the country's workforce.
STORY-LINE
After years of scrutiny - this is the moment many have been waiting for.
UAE's Labour Minister Saqr Ghobash announces a series of reforms that he says will address criticism of work practices in the Emirates.
"The main goal for this decree is to solve the issues and the challenges that face us in the constant improvement of our labour work force."
The reforms are being implemented through three government decrees that will take effect on 1 January 2016.
The new laws will focus on improving the transparency of job terms and employment contracts, spell out how contracts can be broken and could make it easier for workers to switch employers.
They spell out much longed-for changes.
The United Arab Emirates is home to millions of migrant workers, many of them from South Asia and the Philippines.
At 2.6 million strong, Indians alone far outnumber the local population.
Rights groups have long raised concerns about conditions for workers, including inadequate housing, low pay, the illegal confiscation of passports and limits on workers' ability to change employers.
Labour unions are not allowed and strikes are illegal.
Ghobash defends the 'Kafala' system, which requires migrant workers to have an in-country sponsor.
He says the abuse is not with the system, but how it is put into practice.
"These practices that allowed one party to have more power and to control the other party. Today, we are establishing a relationship that is contractual, based on mutual understanding, acceptance and a relationship that could end at anytime so then the relationship no longer has any wrongdoing that could be seen as forced labour."
But there will be challenges that come with the reform; many of the migrant workers who come to the UAE have little education.
"Also working with our offices abroad we are trying to work to clarify all of the elements in a language the simple worker will understand. We don't find any difficulties in clarifying this to highly skilled workers, so our challenge is to get this through to the workers who are not highly skilled, but it has to be done and we have to make sure that the worker leaves his country understanding the most important things in this contract."
"The most important being two things: his rights and obligations and we will continue to explain this in their country and also when they come here."
It was not an easy sell to employers says Ghobash.
"This time we worked hard to consult these decisions with the CEOs and that took time. Almost a year. In the beginning it wasn't easy but then there was a greater understanding which pushed for us to come out with this final decree," he says.
Fellow Gulf nation Qatar has come under scrutiny over its treatment of migrant labourers working on World Cup infrastructure and other construction projects in Qatar.
The country is set to hold the 2022 World Cup, but has been in the news over a number of migrant deaths.
The Qatar government says it expects new guidelines will be put in place by the end of the year.

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