Early Rendering of Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
Human Rights Watch, which has long been critical of conditions for construction workers at the Gehry-designed Guggenheim and other projects on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, issued a statement today endorsing the announced boycott of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi by a group of artists who are concerned about alleged workers’ rights violations at the project.
HRW’s Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, declared:
If the Guggenheim and TDIC [Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company] fail to address the artists’ concerns, the museum
may become better known for exhibiting labor violations than art.
The TDIC has just issued a statement saying that it “fully respects and supports the artists’ role in campaigning for this issue.” It added:
TDIC recently announced that a new internationally recognized consultancy will be appointed to meet the growing scope of work needed to monitor the performance of contractors on Saadiyat. The appointed company will be announced by May 2011 and audit reports will be published on an annual basis.
Also, TDIC has in place a robust mechanism to ensure workers do not pay recruitment fees to work on Saadiyat. TDIC recently expanded this to include that contractors must reimburse workers for any recruitment fees they might have paid.
The artists’ assertions raise the question of whether the “robust mechanism” for banning recruitment fees and the other written guidelines for safeguarding workers’ rights are working in practice. Independent monitoring (not merely consultants appointed by the TDIC) is needed, in light of known past abuses.
But the Guggenheim, in a statement released today, calls that the artists “misinformed.”
Here’s the Guggenheim’s statement in full:
The Guggenheim Foundation is firmly committed to working to protect the rights of individuals on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum site. Several very important steps have been taken over the past six months that demonstrate this commitment.
In September of 2010, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and TDIC issued a public joint statement committing to provide key core rights and benefits to all workers involved in the construction of the museum. One of these benefits is the right of the workers to live in the construction village that TDIC has built on Saadiyat Island, which has set a high standard for workers’ accommodations in the region. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum Director, Richard Armstrong, visited the village this fall.
In a demonstration of its ongoing dedication to ensuring the rights of workers, TDIC has recently taken two significant steps. The first is the decision to put in place what they have promised will be a robust independent monitoring program and to have the monitor issue annual public reports. The second is to contractually require all contractors to reimburse workers for any recruitment fees they have paid to agencies to obtain their jobs. This is an important safeguard intended to enable workers to keep all of the wages they earn.
While we share the artists’ concern for the workers, we believe that, in light of the steady progress that has been made with respect to recruitment fees, the prompt payment of wages, the ability to retain passports, the provision of health insurance and good living accommodations and the imminent appointment of an independent monitor in May, their statement is misinformed. We believe that the Guggenheim Foundation’s work with TDIC has been instrumental in bringing about this progress. We will continue to remain focused on this critical priority.
UPDATE: The text of the artists’ petition is here.