Kuwait’s Public Authority for Manpower has issued a crucial and pivotal notice that employers are legally not allowed to effect any unauthorised reduce ments to the salaries agreed upon in active contractual employment agreements.
Based on the prerogative of the local code of labor laws, the contractual fixed monthly salary, as officially agreed, must stay fully and legally guaranteed throughout the full duration of the employment relationship, thus providing substantial protection for employees against sudden corporate pay-slashing practices and arbitrary salary levies.
This essential regulation-based information is not only a part of Kuwait’s wider ongoing information dissemination campaign aimed at achieving absolute transparency and full legal protection for working employees, but also ranks high up on the national authorities’ list of unwavering safeguards, measures and strategies as they continually crackdown on business organizations trying to l ees in the payroll department.
The authorities’ directives, in addition to reiterating the absolute non-allowability of any ‘Deductions’ to the salaries of employees’ by foreign or local contractors, also shed light on the legislated limits on wage deduction in case of any outstanding financial obligations in the form of internal loans or advances extended to employees that should not exceed ten percent of the total net salary and that no interest may be levied on such.
The authorities set that 25 percent maximum deduction or garnishment per month is legal in terms of external liabilities (wage garnishments) and court-directed financial directives for workers in a duty-oriented society.
The authorities then emphasise that the premium of legal alimony and child support all-timehas to take priority over all other debtors’ claims when two or more simultaneous cases are filed for reimbursement of salary garnishment requests.
Through advanced digital systems of monitoring the salary accounts of workers and strict legal accountability, authorities continue to claw back corporate loopholes and implement principles that promote corporate accountability and fear of accountability among the local employer.
