An investigation into labor conditions for the workers who built New York University’s campus in Abu Dhabi corroborated many of the allegations of abuses reported by media and human rights organizations.

The report by Nardello & Co. found that approximately a third of the estimated 30,000 workers who built the campus worked for subcontractors that were exempted from NYU’s labor guidelines — and the protections therein — because their contracts fell below certain monetary or time-related thresholds. NYU and other key parties did not appear to know about what the report describes as a “de facto exemption policy.”

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