52weeks

Week 34 . Labor of Art/Art of Labor: Organizing Tool Kit in Solidarity with Gulf Laborers

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Organizing tool kit, Twitterbot, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Sarah Farahat and Aaron Hughes

Artists Sarah Farahat and Aaron Hughes offer a downloadable organizing tool kit complete with posters, postcards, and suggestions for solidarity actions and organizing in your community.

In collaboration with an anonymous programmer, they launched a twitterbot campaign on June 3rd to alert high profile tweeters across the globe about NYU, Louvre and Guggenheims’ disregard for human rights. #GulfLaborAction

To view the tool kit, please click here

To print the Tool Kit as a booklet with tear out posters, click here

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Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

52weeks

Week 33 . MOBILE IRONY VALVE . On the Pearl Interpolation (PERP) in a Monument to Bad Memory

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MOBILE IRONY VALVE. On the Pearl Interpolation (PERP) in a Monument to Bad Memory, screenshot of project in various media (PDF chapbook, blog post scroll montage, 3D Animation, Youtube ethnography elliptical edit and thermoplastic printed object), 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 weeks is by Emily Verla Bovino

To see how to add a perp to the herp to the lerp and the berp already present in the library of things, download the chapbook and watch scroll montage here

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Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

52weeks

Week 32 . John Jurayj . 30 Untitled Men

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 John_Untitled-smaller
30 Untitled Men,digital archival print on vellum with burn holes, 30 images, 2007-2011​poster, 2014
Images are courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by John Jurayj

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

News

The International New York Times, May 20, UAE: Was Never Printed

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By its local partner Khaleej Times, because of cover story detailing labor abuses during the construction of NYU Abu Dhabi’s campus on Saadiyat Island.

noNYTimsorry

New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Al Jazeera: “We’ve been in touch with our local printer to express our profound disappointment in this decision, which we understand was based on their objection to this one particular article. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in the UAE.”

Reports:
Al Jazeera: NY TIMES SAYS UAE HALTED PUBLICATION OVER ARTICLE ABOUT LABOR ABUSES
Newsweek: UAE Halts Printing of New York Times Over Damning NYU Labor Article
Capital New York: U.A.E. printer stops presses on International New York Times
Hyperallergic: Emirates Censors International New York Times Over Saadiyat Labor Report

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Gulf Labor Urges Proactive Measures for Migrant Workers Rights on Saadiyat Island

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Press Release/Response to TDIC

May 17, 2014

On May 7th, TDIC issued a reply to Gulf Labor’s report on our visit (undertaken at TDIC’s invitation) to UAE migrant labor camps. Our report offers extensive coverage of the challenges facing migrant workers in the kafala (sponsorship) system.

We were dismayed by TDIC’s indifferent response to our diligent efforts.

Among the several recommendations made in our report, TDIC mentions only one–the proposal of relocation fees for indebted workers–and in abruptly dismissive terms. In our exchanges with them, as well as in their response to our report, TDIC representatives have repeatedly extended an “open invitation” to collaborators “in finding a … solution to the pressing issue of workers’ recruitment fees.” In that light, their cursory rejection of Gulf Labor seems to be an expression of bad faith, and it recycles familiar arguments that are only meant to place responsibility elsewhere than with TDIC, the Guggenheim, and the UAE. We stand by our proposal, and urge TDIC to offer a purposeful, research-based assessment of its viability.

More notably, TDIC ignored all of our other recommendations. These include:

  1. The adoption of a Saadiyat Island living wage;
  2. The formation of workers councils;
  3. The reporting of contractors’ recruitment practices;
  4. The establishment of recruitment agencies in countries of origin;
  5. The amendment of PwC’s monitoring methods;
  6. And the invitation to the ILO to participate in the process of implementation.

These recommendations have been received by human rights organizations as promising additions to the inventory of solutions currently favored by migrant labor advocates. We call on TDIC to take them seriously, and look forward to a substantive response (and not another press release) that illustrates a genuine commitment on TDIC’s part to bettering the conditions and lives of migrant workers in the UAE.

As part of our report, we promised to forward a list of organizations in source countries that could participate in joint research on remedies for relieving migrant workers of their heavy debt burdens.

These include the following:

a) India:

b) Pakistan:

c) Nepal:

d) Bangladesh:

e) United Kingdom:

We urge TDIC to move forward with this common research program by establishing contacts with them, and with other relevant units. Qatar’s recently announced abolition of its kafala system is an illustration of the solid progress that can be made when state authorities work together with international labor advocates.

As before, Gulf Labor is ready to cooperate with the Guggenheim, TDIC, and NYUAD on further researching and implementing our recommendations.

 

Gulf Labor Coalition

52weeks

Week 31 . Creischer, Siekmann . Commentary on the Universal Museum Project in Dubai

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Commentary on the Universal Museum Project in Dubai, poster, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by Creischer, Siekmann

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

To view more photos from the artist’s 2008 research trip to Dubai click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

52weeks

Week 30 . Jaret Vadera . Blue Skies, White Walls, Brown Bodies

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​Blue Skies, White Walls, Brown Bodies, poster, 2014

This week’s contribution to Gulf Labor’s 52 Weeks is by  Jaret Vadera

To download, print, or simply see a higher resolution version of the work, please click here

_________________________________________________________________________

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness). Our campaign focuses on the workers who are building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum (in collaboration with the British Museum).

“52 Weeks” is a one year campaign starting in October 2013. Artists, writers, and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, a text, or action each week that relates to or highlights the unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers building cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi.

To learn more visit: www.gulflabour.org

Please read and/or sign our petition

For additional information, please email: contact@gulflabour.org

News

Observations and Recommendations after Visiting Saadiyat Island and Related Sites, March 2014

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DosandDonts
Dos and Donts, in a 6-person room for workers on Saadiyat Island

On the invitation of TDIC, master-developers of Saadiyat Island, members of Gulf Labor visited the worker accommodations on Saadiyat Island on March 17, and the Louvre and the Guggenheim sites on March 20, 2014. The below document outlines this group’s main observations, concerns and suggestions. These are also based on: a) visits to related off-island sites in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah; b) interviews with workers both in the UAE and in their home countries; c) discussions with informed local sources and; d) previous visits by members of Gulf Labor. Our recommendations for TDIC Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Foundation herein, are made with the sincere intention of cooperating with these institutions on their implementation.

Saadiyat Report Press Release (PDF)

Saadiyat Report 2014  (PDF)

Who's Building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi?