Human Rights Watch questions Guggenheim museum labor

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Guggenheim museum officials have not addressed concerns about how workers would be treated during construction of a Frank Gehry-designed art museum in the United Arab Emirates, a human rights organization said. Construction has not started, but the Persian Gulf nation has a "systemic" worker abuse problem at other construction sites in the booming region, Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Sarah Leah Whitson said Tuesday. "We know how construction workers are used and abused in the UAE," she said. "We know with confidence that workers are going to be subjected to these conditions unless the museum does something to insist otherwise." Officials of the Abu Dhabi museum said Tuesday they had not seen the Human Rights Watch statement and could not immediately comment.