The Nardello & Co. report on NYU Abu Dhabi’s labor violations was released about three weeks ago, but it’s unclear where this puts NYUAD and in particular the student body. We’ve had promises of action from administration that vary in their ability to be successfully implemented. On the ground in Abu Dhabi, the work by those most vulnerable to rights violations is over, with construction coming to an end.

This can lead to a feeling that, after righting past wrongs, there is little more that we, as students, need to do. However, the range of options for action remain open, and it is essential that we continue to push the school to implement fair labor practices.

The immediate reaction to the Nardello & Co. report was an email from NYU President John Sexton detailing the university’s broader reaction. Outlining the initial response, Sexton assured the university that wages will be paid out in full to any and all workers who received below their salary. Sexton also pointed towards a research initiative that would “develop greater understanding of this significant issue [of recruitment fees].”

This is the bare minimum. We, as a university, are applying the band-aid method of restitution without acknowledging, at least for now, the greater structural forces at play.

Indeed, these very basic initiatives of compensation may prove to be difficult to implement. As Nardello & Co. note in their report, “Given the dubious nature of the recruitment agents, most workers do not have proof that they paid a recruitment fee to obtain employment in the UAE.”

Indeed, Nardello & Co. adds that, “The practice of paying recruitment fees to obtain work in the UAE ... is so prevalent that it supports a presumption that all workers paid such fees.” Given these international complexities, it seems that paying back recruitment fees will be easier said than done, unless NYU operates under the assumption that almost all workers paid these fees.

Looking at the root of the issue at NYUAD, the first thing that we need to do is hold those who designed the de-facto scheme accountable. Sexton, in his email, writes that neither NYU nor Tamkeen knew of the policy. However, the Nardello & Co. report notes that, although this policy was implemented by Mubadala, AF Carillion and EC Harris — the companies which were contracted to carry out construction — “The NYU personnel that we interviewed told us they were not aware of any monetary threshold, although some said they were aware of a time threshold.”

Furthermore, correspondence between the three contractors that implemented the plan indicate in the report that NYU was aware of the policy, but was never copied into the chain of correspondence. The CEO of Mubadala, Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak also sits on the NYU board of trustees and is a member of the Executive Affairs Authority, which also claims it did not know of the de facto exemption policy. These overlapping accounts and responsibilities need to be clarified.

Moving on from accountability, our next step should be to implement measures to ensure that these violations do not happen in the future. It is incumbent upon the student body to push for administration to discontinue this de-facto exemption policy. Here is also an opportunity for us to go further. Despite it being thrown into the too-hard basket by EC Harris, Mott MacDonald and Mubadala, we should require that all contractors that NYU interacts with comply with the university's Statement of Labor Values, no matter how short their commitment is.

We must also clarify certains points within the Statement of Labor Values. The Statement notes that, “No worker shall be subject to harassment, intimidation or retaliation in their efforts to resolve work disputes.” When laborers go on strike, as they have while working on the main campus project, they have been deported, with Nardello finding that, “Not a single worker [who went on strike] said that they chose to be dismissed or knew of any one who did.” Striking is illegal in the UAE, but it is fundamental to safe and fair work practices that workers be able to organize on their own terms.

Conversation on its own is not enough. We saw this with the university town hall held two weeks ago. It started ten minutes late, out of a total allotted time of an hour and, according to someone present, much of the time for speaking was devoted to outlining many of the facts that were already in the Nardello & Co. report. It was only through action, those of the workers who protested at their conditions and the journalists who followed this up, that we even came to know about the labor violations that were happening around us. It’s time that we rethink the ways in which we are involved.