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I was working on an unlimited contract with a company registered in JAFZA. After finishing 10.5 months they terminated me with a 1 month notice. When it came to vacation time calculation they did the usual 10.5 X 2 = 21 days accrued.

Here is the problem -
I took two leaves for 5 days and 3 days each. Incidentally each time I came back I was sick. I could not go the next day and I called in sick. They counted both as vacation days.

In the 5 day leave, my sick day was after my off weekend. So they calculated both off days as vacation resulting in charging me 3 extra days. When I asked the accountant to explain he said they count calendar days. My contract clearly says I have 24 working days in a year and 30 calendar days. Since I didn't complete one year I don't get 30 calendar days. But the problem I see here is that when they are calculating leave taken they count "calendar" days but when they calculate days accrued they use 2 working days per month.

I want to find out what the actual law is. Can anybody with any labor law experience help me?

I don't know how two terms (24 working days and 30 calendar days) are there in your contract as mostly only one, either working days or calendar days.

If it's only few days of difference, it's not worth to fight for if for example you're filing a case against them to JAFZA/MoL/court. After all, you're less than one year in service.

Anyway, check elaws.gov.ae for full text of labour law. But as I've read it, there's no detail about pro-rata formula. There's a clause about pro-rata gratuity but it doesn't explain whether it's calculated by days in a year or days in a month.

It is not worth fighting for. The law doesn't go into such specific detail. I'm sure you wouldn't have submitted a doctor certificate to prove that you were sick so they would be justified in adding the additional days to your leave.

xty wrote:I don't know how two terms (24 working days and 30 calendar days) are there in your contract as mostly only one, either working days or calendar days.

If it's only few days of difference, it's not worth to fight for if for example you're filing a case against them to JAFZA/MoL/court. After all, you're less than one year in service.

Anyway, check elaws.gov.ae for full text of labour law. But as I've read it, there's no detail about pro-rata formula. There's a clause about pro-rata gratuity but it doesn't explain whether it's calculated by days in a year or days in a month.

Actually I typed the annual leave term wrong. The actual text of the contract says this -

The employee shall be entitle to 24 work days (30 calendar days) paid annual leave for each full year of completed service. Annual leave accrues at the rate of 2 days per calendar month.

My understanding of the work days/calendar days relation is that you get to be off 24 working days in a year. If you choose to break down your vacation or save it until the end of the year, its upto you and management. The extra 6 "calendar" days enables you to go back to your country for a long vacation without having your salary deducted for weekends which fall in between working days (since most of us are expats here.) So lets say I take 17 days vacation in 1 year, I have 7 working days left at the end of the year. If I go on a leave I can go 5 + 2 working days paid leave with 2 day weekend sandwiched in between. The extra 4 days (out of 30) get forfeited because I broke down my vacation time over the year.

I sat with the accountant who gave me a weird explanation. According to him in the same scenario as above, I would have 13 days vacation left if i finish a year. His explanation basically drew no differences between working days and calendar days. I can take ALL 24 working days off (broken down) in a year and still have 6 days remain at the end which I think is illogical.

In any case, I decided to forget about it since its only 4 days of vacation that I'm losing. However, for a company which does such things with every employee, they will be making a fortune stealing money from every employee. I lost AED 3000 and if they do it with 100 others the company makes a cool 300K just by accounting manipulation.

not only in agreements or work contracts, even sometimes there are loopholes in laws. this is where companies and lawyers make money out of us.

it is common in work contracts to have a clause saying that you need to report immediately upon resuming vacation otherwise you'll get penalty (cut on vacation days or salary).