In the month of September 2016, I went to India after taking 3 days paid leave (Sept 6 to 8) which was approved by the manager. I resumed duty on Sept 15, 2016 due to the following reasons.

Sept 9 (Friday holiday); Sept 10 (half day working in the company); Sept 11 to 14 were public holidays due to Eid Al-Adha. Please note that my employer deducted 6 days salary in the month of September 2016. Will you please clarify whether this deduction is in accordance with the Kuwait Labor Law.

On the other hand, as I am working in the tender department, I used to work extended hours, Fridays and public holidays without any overtime payment.

Name withheld Answer: First of all, we will tackle your last remark. You worked all those hours, weekends and public holidays without getting paid of your own accord although you should have objected to the same. Now, it is useless to tie that to your current problem.

Before we go on, we would like to tell you that while you were wrong to work for “free” on holidays, you are wrong on the issue of “just taking off” on public holidays.

You can’t disappear from work on a day which lies between public holidays and expect to face a deduction for only one day just because employees have a right to take off on public holidays. When you are on holiday, you are required to rejoin the firm at the end of your leave. If at the end of the leave you run into a Friday, as was your case, you have to rejoin on Saturday.

In this case the company considers you to have rejoined on Friday. But in case you don’t rejoin on Saturday, the company is right to consider you absent for both Friday and Saturday. You will also be considered absent from work (because of the absence on Saturday) for all the days after that, even if these are official holidays. So, the company is totally right in deducting your salary for six days.

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