Question, a company transferred to another freezone, a new trade license was created for the new freezone area and closed the license of the previous one. What is the status of its employees as they will need their visa sponsorship transferred to that freezone too and also since the previous trade license was closed, the employees are being required to sign a new contract, new labour card, etc.
essentialy the company has closed, and has opened as a new one, under a new license. this means all staff are required to sign new contracts and are technically new employees. as the business is in another freezone a new labour contract is required (
as the labour contract is actually between you and freezone authority and not the company who employs you). if the new company was formed/ created in the same freezone then there would be no problem and no need for a new labour contract
Are the employees entitled to be given their gratuities?
this depends on the freezone regulations of the FZ in which you were employed,
note they are freezones and are NOT subject to exactly the same labour laws as people working in one of the emirates - legally they are not part of the UAE or subject to federal laws. i have seen in some freezones that there is NO provision made for employee gratuities, each FZ has its own regulations.
Will they be considered new employees hence the counting of their length of service with the company starts again at the beginning or will it just be continued as such?
new employees
What is the usual procedure for this kind of situation?
there is no usual procedure for this within a FZ, if it was in any of the emirates (and not a FZ) and the company was closed and another opened with the same sponsor then you could simply transfer from one business to another without loss of benefits (if any)
Thanks in advance for any helpful information out there.