Health, work, dignity, livelihood: 52 Weeks project by Gulf Labor group protests the working conditions of migrant labourers in Abu Dhabi

Gulf Labor is a coalition of artists and activists who have been working since 2011 to highlight the coercive recruitment, and unjust living and working conditions of migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island - translated as the Island of Happiness. Their 52 Weeks 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).

Image of Gulf workers (c) Human Rights Watch

52 Weeks is a one year campaign which has just launched. Artists, writers and activists from different cities and countries are invited to contribute a work, text or action each week that relates to or highlights the coercive recruitment and deplorable living and working conditions of migrant labourers in Abu Dhabi. In the first weeks there have been contributions by Doug Ashford, Doris Bittar, Sam Durant, Matthew Greco, Gulf Labor, Hans Haacke, Thomas Hirschhorn, Lynn Love, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Naeem Mohaiemen, Walid Raad, Oliver Ressler, Andrew Ross, Jayce Salloum, Ann Sappenfield and Gregory Sholette. The coming weeks will see contributions by Haig Aivazian, Shaina Anand, Ayreen Anastas, Yto Berrada, Noel Doublas, Rana Jaleel, Rene Gabri, Mariam Ghani, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Josh MacPhee, Marina Naprushkina, Shirin Neshat, Ashok Sukumaran, WBYA (Who Builds Your Architecture) and many others.

Walid Raad, a member of Gulf Labor stated:

If the Guggenheim, Louvre and TDIC [Tourism, Development & Investment Company. Abu Dhabi] were willing to invest as much energy and resources into safeguarding the rights of workers buildings museums on Saadiyat Island, as they are on hiring “starchitects,” building engineering marvels, and buying challenging artworks, then their claims of building the best infrastructure for the arts in the world would be more than words in the wind. Abu Dhabi, its residents and workers, deserve more than the “edgy” buildings and collections proposed by the best museum-brands in the world. Abu Dhabi also deserves the development, implementation and enforcement of the most progressive labor laws for their emerging institutions. If the museums can’t see this, then I can only hope that the ruling Sheikhs and Sheikhas will, and soon.

Doris Bittar, a member of Gulf Labor stated:

Appearances are deceiving. The workers building the museums in Abu Dhabi look neat in their blue uniforms and hard hats. Their cared for appearance belie the facts that many are working 15-hour shifts, have had their passports confiscated and cannot leave or quit, they cannot congregate or collectively make demands regarding their lack of pay and their poor living conditions, and they have no recourse if they are physically abused because of unenforced labour laws. Sometimes, the only way they can leave and be sent home is in caskets.

Naeem Mohaiemen, a member of Gulf Labor stated:

We note efforts to always push blame down the human-labour supply chain: corrupt middlemen, "illiterate" workers, or recruitment agencies in the origin countries. This avoids acknowledgement of the overwhelming power, and responsibility, in the hands of institutions in Abu Dhabi and within the Euro-American art axis.

Guy Mannes-Abbott, a member of Gulf Labor stated to me in an extended commentary:

The migrant community in the UAE makes up some 80% of the population, most of whom have very few rights as such and those [that they have] are very poorly monitored, or easily got around - with the help of [sometimes] vulnerable non-Emiratis. However while there are movements for political reform in all Gulf countries including the UAE this permanent population-in-flux is not included in those fights for citizenship and potential constitutional rights as political subjects. One aim here is to help make such a migrant subject thinkable on a global scale.

This is the point at which individuals, who are often working in "conditions of forced labour" according to Human Rights Watch, because of coercive and illicit recruitment fees equivalent to some two years of earnings [and which incur extortionate and hugely inflated interest rates] for construction workers, link to broader locations, narratives and collectives in a globalised economy. In November 2012  PriceWaterhouseCooper, appointed by Abu Dhabi's TDIC despite compromising links in the Gulf and Gulf Labor's alternative suggestions, reported that 75% of construction workers on Saadiyat had paid recruitment fees and other costs. The response from TDIC has been to demand receipts (!) and to sack even PriceWaterhouseCooper at the end of that year… 

The average income in Abu Dhabi is about $30,000 while the average income for migrant construction workers is less than 10% of that. In Qatar, the average income is over $70,000. 

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has gotten underway with workers trapped by these recruitment fees, many of them - 40% according to PriceWaterhouseCooper, despite an "obligation" on contractors to house employees there - not living in the official accommodation provided on Saadiyat. The official accommodation is a metal-walled camp for up to 40,000 men, almost all of whom originate from South Asia. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is happy to pay these labouring men about $2500-3000 a year and watch others being deported for pleading for a few hundred dollars more per year to eat properly, while itself receiving $17,500,000 a year for 30 years from Abu Dhabi for the use of the 'Louvre' brand alone. The total package is worth well over a billion dollars and includes various sweeteners built in and around Paris for the French government too. 

UAE is a signatory to International Labour Organisation conventions but has not implemented laws on the right to organise and collectively bargain or form a union. There is a minimum wage on the books but it has not come in to law. Both of these would enable these often basely exploited people to address their situation fairly and with dignity as well as to transform their experience into one of meaningful sacrifice. Meanwhile, if a worker on Saadiyat wants to lodge a complaint, which is a legal right, he has to get it in writing and hand-deliver it either to Dubai or another spot in Abu Dhabi notably distant from the camp which even in Abu Dhabi is officially classified as "remote". He can only do that on a day off and on that day off, Friday, these ministry buildings are closed… 

Poster launching Gulf Labor 52 Weeks...
at 2013 Venice Biennale

Gulf Labor is intent on raising standards and extending aspirations. Richard Armstrong, Director of the Guggenheim Foundation has described the Gehry-designed Museum he wants to build on these foundations as a "beacon" of cultural exchange: brightly-lit meaninglessness. Instead, Gulf Labor is intent on turning that light into the dark corners of this enterprise to remind the world and the UAE of the hopes, dreams and legitimate expectations of the human beings whose lives are being defined by their experience today. 

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, like the Louvre Abu Dhabi, is presently on course to memorialise "conditions of forced labour". There is time, occasion and opportunity to change that. The UAE is trying to achieve something very remarkable, very fast but doing it like this undermines otherwise laudable ambitions and legitimate aspirations. 

With thanks to Gulf Labor and in particular Guy Mannes-Abbott. Bidisha is a 2013 International Reporting Project Fellow reporting on global health and development issues. 

"I would rather be a rebel than a slave." Emmeline Pankhurst, happy birthday

Emmeline Pankhurst, mother of the British Suffragette movement, was born 153 years ago this week, on 14th July. To celebrate her legacy Charlotte Newson has created Women Like You, a photomosaic portrait of Pankhurst made up of 10,000 individual images of inspiring women - celebrities, mothers, daughters, politicians, scientists – all sent in by members of the public from all corners of the globe. The artwork took Charlotte two years to complete and stands 3 metres high and 2.5 metres wide.

To mark the date of Pankhurst’s birth on 14 July 1858, Charlotte has turned the Women Like You artwork into a virtual birthday card for women to either sign or post their image onto, creating a personal and very public birthday message to the woman whose legacy transformed the lives of women in this country. The e-card is displayed on Charlotte’s website, featuring the names and photographs of women from all over the world.

Living and working in Manchester, Charlotte Newson has over 20 years’ experience as an artist and has a residency at The Pankhurst Centre, a museum and women’s support space on Nelson Street in Manchester that was the home of Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia, Christabel and Adela from 1897 – 1907.

Charlotte says:

“The original Women Like You portrait was a hugely moving labour of love for everyone involved and it created a great community of women who wanted to share their stories with the world.  Now, using the internet and social media networks, we’re able to give even more women the opportunity to leave their mark and become part of the Women Like You story with this birthday card tribute to Emmeline Pankhurst.”

To speak to Charlotte about the portrait or the legacy of feminism please contact Emma Beck on 07932 763 015 or email emma@lollipop-pr.com

And in the meantime, enjoy and be fired up by these Pankhurst quotes:

• Trust in God - she will provide.
• Deeds not words.
• Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it.
• We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.
• Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.
• We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.
• You have two babies very hungry and wanting to be fed. One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics. You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.
• I know that women, once convinced that they are doing what is right, that their rebellion is just, will go on, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers, so long as there is a woman alive to hold up the flag of rebellion. I would rather be a rebel than a slave. I would rather die than submit;and that is the spirit that animates this movement…..I mean to be a voter in the land that gave me birth or they shall kill me, and my challenge to the Government is: kill me or give me my freedom: I shall force you to make that choice.

The Pankhurst timeline:

14 July 1858: Born Emmeline Goulden in Moss Side, Manchester.

1879: Marries Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a lawyer. Richard
had drafted an amendment to the Municipal Franchise
Act of 1869 which allowed unmarried women
householders to vote in local elections. He also wrote
the Married Women’s Property Acts in 1870 and 1882.

1880: Her daughter Christabel is born. She and Emmeline’s
second daughter Sylvia are also destined to become
prominent in the women’s suffrage movement. They
were joined by Adella the youngest daughter in the
early days of the campaign.

1889: Helps found the Women’s Franchise League.

1894: The league wins the right for married women to vote
in elections for local offices, but not for them to vote
for the House of Commons.

1898: Emmeline’s husband dies of a perforated ulcer.

1903: Founds the Women’s Social and Political Union
(WSPU) in Manchester.

1905: Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney are the first
suffragette’s to be jailed. They disrupted a public
meeting at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, speakers
included Winston Churchill.

1906: Emmeline directs WSPU activities from London,
organising marches and campaigns against the
Liberal government. The women are disparaged as
“suffragettes” by the Daily Mail but the movement
proudly adopts the description.

1908-09: She is jailed three times.

1910: Emmeline is refused entry by the police to see Prime
Minister Asquith at the House of Commons to protest
against the dropping of the Conciliation Bill, which
would have given women the vote. Emmeline is
refused entry by the police. The protest develops into
a riot when the women clash with the police and over
100 women are arrested on charges varying from
disturbing the peace to assaulting police officers. The
day comes to be known to the suffragettes as ‘Black
Friday’.

1912: The WSPU becomes militant, with Christabel Pankhurst
directing arson attacks, window smashing, picture
slashing and hunger strikes from Paris, where she
has fled to avoid arrest for conspiracy. Emmeline is
arrested, released and rearrested 12 times within a year,
serving a total of about 30 days jail.

1914: When the First World War breaks out Emmeline and
Christabel call off the suffrage campaign to support
the war effort. During the war Emmeline visits the
United States, Canada and Russia to encourage the
mobilisation of women.

1918: The Representation of People Act is passed in February
giving the vote to women over 30.

1926: Emmeline returns to England and is chosen as the
Conservative candidate for an east London seat, but
her health fails before she can be elected.

1928: She dies on 14 June in London, a few weeks after the
Representation of the People Act establishing voting
equality for men and women is passed.



This text is taken from the press release for the project, full details of which are viewable at charlottenewson.com. Copyright for the text is hers, not mine.