NYU unveils labor guidelines for Abu Dhabi campus

Human rights advocates warn that the workers building NYU's new campus could be forced laborers.

Tom HundleyFebruary 5, 2010 06:44Updated May 30, 2010 12:20

Construction workers leave Yas Island after a day's work in Abu Dhabi, April 21, 2009. (Mosab Omar/Reuters)

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — New York University (NYU) is building what it describes as “the first world-class liberal arts university in the Middle East” in this oil-rich city state, but human rights activists fear it will be doing so with an army of Third World laborers who are earning less than a dollar an hour in conditions of forced labor.

NYU, one of America's elite universities, is not unaware of the harsh labor practices in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven semi-autonomous sheikhdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Last year, after faculty and students raised questions about Abu Dhabi's human rights record and its treatment of migrant workers, NYU issued a joint statement of “shared values” with the Abu Dhabi government in which it acknowledged the “different legal and cultural environments” in the Middle East, but insisted that local contractors involved in the campus construction project would fully comply with United Arab Emirates labor law.

But critics pointed out that while these laws may exist, they are rarely enforced. So this week NYU unveiled a new set of contractual guidelines for workers involved in the project. These include a provision for at least one day off each week, a guarantee that employers will stop confiscating workers’ passports and that all overtime will be voluntary.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), which last year issued an unflattering report on labor conditions in the Emirates, called the new guidelines a “significant step,” but said it still had concerns.

"Without a contractual agreement between NYU and its Abu Dhabi partner ensuring independent, third-party monitoring of labor conditions, there will be no way to know if employers are complying," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director. "And without clear penalties, such as treble damages and termination of the contract, these requirements will have no teeth."

Andrew Ross, an NYU professor who has been a sharp critic of the Abu Dhabi project, called the new guidelines “promising” but agreed that the university needed to hire independent on-site inspectors to make sure the guidelines are actually enforced.

“If that doesn't happen, then this statement of values will remain just that — words on a page, or a website,” he said.