Abused Labor a Concern for NYU, Guggenheim Sites in UAE

NYU junior Claire Lewis, a member of the coalition and of the campus chapter of Students Creating Radical Change, said she's one of many who have been asking the university for proof that it is addressing the issue. She says they've had no response.

"I want something contractually that says workers rights will be protected at a place that has my university's name on it," Lewis said.

The Guggenheim Museum did not offer comment, and a representative for Frank Gehry declined to discuss the issue.

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Undoing the Abramoff Effect Continued

The Abu Dhabi developer which is leading the Saadiyat Island expansion, Tourism Development & Investment Company, did not respond to a request about how workers rights are being addressed. But the company did tell a blogger inquiring about the issue that "TDIC is committed to best practices in every aspect in which it operates and requires its partners to adhere to a code of best practices, including the treatment of overseas workers."

Saadiyat Island Set to be the Next Hot UAE Destination

On its surface, Saadiyat Island, a natural island being developed in the Arabian waters of United Arab Emirate's Abu Dhabi, seems to have all the makings of an up-and-coming luxury coastal retreat: a name that translates to "happiness," celebrity-designed hotels and championship golf courses, and an ever-growing array of cultural institutions from around the world.

But behind these multi-billion dollar plans, human rights advocates say, the nation's long pervasive problem of exploiting the foreign workers building its burgeoning swanky skyline is still widespread.

Migrant construction workers in the UAE, and the conditions under which they are exploited, were part of an ABC News exclusive report that journeyed into the emirate of Dubai to expose the dark side of the boomtown. The team found construction workers, mostly from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, working as many as six days a week, 12 hours a day, in excruciating heat, returning "home" to extremely crowded living camps. That story focused on conditions in Dubai, not in Abu Dhabi.

Watch the story here.

In a 2006 report, Human Rights Watch detailed the abuse workers, most of whom hail from South Asia and send their earnings back to their families, suffer at the hands of their employers, including: hazardous working conditions resulting in high rates of death and injury, unpaid or extremely low wages, confiscated passports, and, in some cases, severe indebtedness to recruitment agencies to repay fees that UAE law said were supposed to be paid by the employer.