On Monday, artist Molly Crabapple published “Slaves of Happiness Island,” a firsthand report of the slave-like worker conditions on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island; the Guggenheim, Louvre, and NYU are all building enormous new enterprises there [...] These conditions violate local and international labor laws. We have now received leaked email correspondence between the Guggenheim and Crabapple ... [that] reveal a shocking unwillingness to provide any statement to journalists [...] — ArtFCity
3 Comments
I think "bullies" might be a strong word here, but it seems very clear that Guggenheim was - and is - on the defensive and wants to avoid these conversations as much as they possibly can.
Their boilerplate "We're not directly hiring anyone, everyone will be contracted through an employment firm that meets all current employment laws" is embarrassingly self-serving CYA language, nothing more.
We're really acting like colonialists.
This is the case with the overriding number of projects in the region (UAE, Qatar, KSA, etc).
I have personal site experience in the UAE and have seen how bad it is for the site labourers.
Donna, it is not just western companies that act like detached colonial masters who only care for their profit irrespective of the human cost ; I would venture that many many many Arab companies- usually playing the intermediate agent between the western companies and the subcontinental (indian, bengladeshi, Pakistani, nepali, etc) labour force- are just as colonial. They might be more involved and less detached, running the daily operations, but they are just as complicit. And so are the "governments" (monarchies) of these non-democracies.
It is really a system that feeds on the poor for the exponential benefit of the more privileged. It is true that labourers do gain more from this work than they would back in their home countries....but look at their living conditions in the Gulf countries, look at what sort of working conditions they have to suffer, subhuman, lacking of dignity. The higher up the ladder you are, the more ridiculously your benefits and gaining are in relation to the labourer's. So, if a labourer makes 200 something dollar (for a workshift plus overtime as stated in the article), a simple starting site engineer will make ten times that, 2000 something dollars . Now, a site project manager will make something like 10000 something dollars, 20,000? ...the client's representative might be taking something like, I don't know, 30,000? 40,000?50,000 per month? with vacations, time off and all sorts of benefits?
So, eventually a mere labourer could be making roughly 250 dollars per month slaving away day and part of night, having to bunk up with tens of other men in a small crammed room...whereas a client's representative will be making 200 times that:50,000 and own a whole villa, thee or four cars, swimming pool, club membership, you name it...all to her-or-himself and her or his family.
I have (and am, unfortunately) working on projects in the Middle East, and second tammuz. The high fees that firms in the US and EU love about Middle Eastern projects literally comes from the wallets of the poor laborers. Everyone gains, especially the (mostly white Australian, English, South African and American) PMs and Client Reps etc at the cost of the laborers. I do mention race here, as there is a clear distinction in wages based on skin color, but thats a different story.
What I want to add is that a lot of the contractors that are based in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are 100% accomplices in this crime too, as they are the ones who are feeding the proverbial sheep to the wolves.
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