Our company closed overnight without paying us — what can staff do in the UAE?

Start with MOHRE, and start together — a collective complaint from twenty employees about an establishment that has shut and stopped paying gets a very different level of attention from twenty scattered ones. File through the MOHRE app or call centre; the ministry will attempt contact with the employer, and when the employer has effectively vanished, the dispute is referred to the labour court. Your unpaid salaries and end-of-service rank as privileged claims against whatever assets the company has. In parallel, check the trade licence status with the economic department of the relevant emirate — whether it is active, expired or cancelled shapes the route — and gather what each of you holds: contracts, work permits, WPS bank statements, and the last communications from the owner. If any of you subscribed to the involuntary loss of employment insurance scheme, claim under it; that is what it exists for. Ask MOHRE explicitly about your visa positions too, since employees of a non-operating establishment can usually be released to transfer to new sponsors. With this many claimants and an absent owner, pooling funds for one licensed UAE lawyer to run the group claim is usually the efficient move.