In the 1960s the United Arab Emirates (UAE) struck oil. Over the years, the UAE has increasingly invested in an array of sectors to reduce economic dependence on hydrocarbon exports. All sectors that the UAE is actively investing in, are not only global but require infrastructure development. Between the Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi there are currently about 1,300 construction projects in development worth over $418 billion (Sonmez et al., 2011). The Emirates lack the domestic labor force required to support these construction endeavors. For this reason, the UAE is largely dependent on migrant labor.

As billions of dollars are being invested in construction, construction workers are the physical driving force behind the UAE's infrastructural development and overall growth. Despite being an integral component to decreasing the dependence on oil rents and diversifying the economy through construction, workers in this industry are severely mistreated. This study seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of workers' rights in the construction industry in the UAE. The central research question framing this study is: what are the labor violations faced by workers and to what degree has the UAE government responded to these issues? The follow up questions are then, have working conditions improved and what are the challenges in improving these conditions?

This study employs a qualitative approach, drawing on current literature in order to answer the central research questions. The discussion in this paper is based on an analysis of the information collected through archival research and is divided into 7 chapters. The penultimate chapter of this thesis features a case study of Abu Dhabi's $27 billion megaproject, Saayidat Island, which is home to the new Guggenheim, Louvre, and New York University (NYU) satellite campus. This current case study will be used in order to examine the status of workers' rights violations and the level of enforcement of government policy on labor issues.

After a review of government policy on labor, this paper concludes that the UAE does not lack legislation on labor issues, but rather lacks enforcement of these laws. Thus, this study finds that the largest hurdles to enforcing labor laws is the level of crony capitalism between the government and the construction industry and the disposability of labor. This study hypothesizes that the partnerships Abu Dhabi is building with big international names at Saayidat Island, like the Guggenheim and Louvre museums and also universities like New York University, may serve as a tipping point and bring more international scrutiny to violations of workers' rights in this industry. The hope is that mounting international pressure, as seen in Qatar leading up to the 2022 World Cup, will encourage the UAE to go beyond responding to these issues at the institutional level and motivate them to enforce the labor laws on the ground.