More than 70 percent of people who took part in an online poll said the new rules banning workers from returning to the UAE for a year after losing a labour court case were not fair.
The spot poll on Arabian Business found that 71.1 percent of respondents thought the move would put people off taking genuine cases to court.
Only 4.2 percent agreed with the changes, which were announced earlier this week, saying it was “tough luck”.
The law change was introduced to cut down on the number of malicious cases filed in Dubai’s labour courts, officials said on Monday.
According to Ahmed Abdulla Hussain, chief of the Labour Court, quoted in media reports on Monday, a number of employers have used the fallout from the global financial crisis as an excuse to lay off workers without justification.
As a result the number of labour cases heard in Dubai have increased by between 40-50 percent in the first six months of the year.
Currently if a worker loses a case against their employer they must leave the country, but they are free to get another job and return almost straight away. But, under the new rules they will be banned for an entire year and ordered to pay costs and legal fees.
Nine percent of people who took part in the poll said the new law was justified if it was going to stop malicious cases.
While 15.7 percent said it was a step too far and just making people pay costs would be a big enough deterrent unless workers had a solid case.
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