Tuesday, Jan 17, 2006
Manama: A row over holidays between private sector employees and the Bahrain Chamber for Commerce and Industry is threatening to plunge the country into a confidence crisis while disgruntled staff warned of protests.
The dispute came to a head on Sunday afternoon after the government announced a three-day mourning period on the death of Kuwait's Emir Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah and declared that all government establishments and organisations would remain closed. The chamber, which oversees the private sector, refused to announce a holiday and left the decision to the discretion of employers.
"Bahrain has regular and emergency holidays. The regular holidays are 14 days a year and there is no issue about them. As for the emergency holidays, there are two types: those decreed by the government and which apply to public establishments and those decreed by the Royal Court and which apply to both the public and private sectors," the Chamber said.
"In both cases, the chamber cannot force any private establishment or organisation to close or open and it is left to the employers to make a decision."
"We have received calls to stage sit-ins and rallies to protest against the decision to give holidays exclusively to the public sector," General Federation of Trade Unions of Bahrain Workers Assistant Secretary-General Mohammad Ali Makki said in a statement. "There is a legislation deficiency that needs to be addressed promptly to eliminate discrimination," he said.
Federation Deputy Secretary-General Salman Mahfoodh said "private sector staff were no less important than their public counterparts" and that they had "the right to defend all their rights, including holidays".
Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.
