N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi Workers Were Exploited

One of America’s most expensive private universities is accused of contributing to the exploitation of migrant laborers in the United Arab Emirates. The New York Times reveals that the construction workers building New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi are forced to pay up to a year’s wages in recruitment fees and not allowed to keep their own passports. NYU admitted that it does not actually oversee what construction companies pay the workers, but there is other evidence that the Abu Dhabi treatment did not meet the elite university’s “statement of labor value.” While NYU claimed the camps for workers offered “on-site leisure facilities” and “a wide range of recreational pursuits,” contractors like City Falcon crammed up to 15 men into a single room filled with exposed wire and cockroaches.