Gulf Labor needs your help self-publishing a report about the conditions of Abu Dhabi’s migrant workers who are building branches of the Guggenheim and the Louvre.
The gleaming cityscapes of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are being assembled, at boomtown speed, from the hard-pressed labor of armies of migrant workers from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal. Bound to an employer by the kafala sponsorship system, the laborers arrive, heavily indebted from recruitment and transit fees, only to find that their Gulf Dream has been a mirage. Typically, the sponsoring employer takes their passports, houses them in substandard labor camps, pays much less than they were promised, and enforces a punishing work regimen under the hot desert sun. Many fall prey to suicide, or die from overwork or overheat.
For the past three years, Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and writers, has been working on achieving fairer labor standards for the workers by pressuring the museums constructing branches on the new cultural zone on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island. More than two thousand members of the international artworld have joined our boycott of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, scheduled to ramp up construction this year. Gulf Labor has taken a hard line in negotiations with the museum and UAE authorities, organized the 52 Weeks agit-prop campaign, and staged four spectacular occupations of the Guggenheim New York. In his roundup of 2014's notable events, the New York Times art critic, Holland Cotter, singled out the Gulf Labor campaign and the work of Global Ultra Luxury Faction (its direct action spinoff). “The groups’ action,” he summarized, “has been carefully organized, effectively executed and persistent, as any protest that’s going to work must be.”
![]()
Last year, a Gulf Labor team visited labor camps and produced a
preliminary report, which has been used and cited by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Trade Union Congress, and other NGOs active in the Gulf states. To combat the
lavish propaganda about Saadiyat Island spun by the Abu Dhabi authorities, we need to return to the camps to gather more testimony and update the findings. We hope to undertake two trips this spring, and release a new report in the summer.
No one should be asked to visit, exhibit or perform in a museum built on the backs of abused workers.
Funding will cover the following:
Two week-long research trips undertaken by small GL teams. Field interviews will be conducted with workers in Abu Dhabi labor camps.
Self-publication of the report.
Distribution of the report and a newsprint pamphlet to workers and worker organizations in the UAE, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal