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Annual Leave Allowance in Bahrain

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brightonguy

Hello all. I am a bit confused with regards to the labour law about annual leave entitlement in Bahrain. If a company gives 30 calendar days of holiday entitlement (meaning if I take Thursday and the following Sunday off, the company takes 4 days off of the entitlement), would this be in-line with the labour law or does it have to be 30 working days?

raybooysen

Good day, I work with HR systems and through discussions with various companies around the island, the standard is 30 calendar days or 22 working days per year.  So unfortunately, taking the thursday and sunday would result in 4 days leave being taken.  The only exceptions for calendar day leave are public/bank holidays.

brightonguy

Thank you for the clarification.

Farhaz

This is an ambiguity in the current labour law from what I understood. My current and previous employers issued clarifications to staff when the law was promulgated. Both (thankfully :D ) clarified that staff will be entitled to 30 working days of annual leave. The weekends did not count.

You may want to raise this with your employers, brightonguy. Maybe even seek advise of the LMRA on what their views on this are.

capriole

I have the same experience as Farhaz, for the last two years my entitlement was 30 working days not calendar days, so maybe its your company trying to exploit a loophole there?

raybooysen

At the end of the day, it all depends on your contract.  That will be your first point of reference.  If it is not stipulated in your contract, then you would need speak to your HR department.

brightonguy

The contract clearly says it's calendar days, not working days, but if this is against the LMRA law then the contract rules become invalid.

Farhaz

That's the issue. The law is not clear on this matter. It just says 30 days without specifying if it's calendar days or work days.

The fact that some employers give 30 work days is a good precedent. LMRA should give you some guidance as well.

Good luck.

brightonguy

Thanks all. Will have a chat with LMRA.

Olivier-France

Hi guys...

Not LMRA, Ministry of Labour :D
LMRA is taking care of the visas.
They have people to help employees (or even employers !) with the questions they might have.
But all what is said up here is correct and if your contract says Calendar days, there is not much to hope...

Here is what the Labour law says in Article 58 :
"Without prejudice to application of Article (60) of this Law, a worker who completes at least one year of consecutive service, shall be entitled to an annual leave not less than (30) days on full pay.
If the worker's period of service is less than one year, he shall be entitled to an annual leave in proportion to the period of his service."

Cheers

Olivier

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