UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Rules Out Mass Lay-Offs

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 1997 (IPS) - The United Nations says it has no plans to throw a thousand staffers onto the streets as part of the plans to restructure the world body announced last week.

“Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan to terminate 1,000 posts will not hamper the work of the Secretariat, since most of the posts are vacant,” Under-Secretary-General Joseph Connor said. “We do not anticipate any involuntary separations,” he assured U.N. delegates Tuesday.

Connor was responding to fears expressed by staffers and delegates that new cost-cutting measures announced by Annan may result in mass lay-offs.

Speaking on behalf of the 132 developing countries of the ‘Group of 77′, Muhammad Yussuf of Tanzania said the 185-member General Assembly had decided last year that any efforts to achieve savings should not result in the arbitrary firing of existing staff.

Pressure for the lay-offs has come from U.S. politicians, including lawmakers in Congress. Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the most vocal critics of the United Nations, said last year that as part of a restructuring of the Secretariat, the world body should lay-off at least 50 percent of its staff of nearly 9,000. Helms said that unless there was drastic cost-cutting, Congress would not agree to release some 1.3 billion dollars that Washington owes to the world body.

Helms’ office has been cool so far to Annan’s reform proposals.

“These look like repackaged ideas from old, discredited reform proposals that didn’t fly with Congress before, and we’re very concerned about whether Annan is playing a shell game,” said Marc Thiessen, a spokesman for Helms, who says he is seeking the elimination of existing posts rather than a reduction of jobs by attrition.

The Secretary-General’s announcements last week included plans to cut staff, reduce administrative costs, merge three U.N. departments, and institute a code of conduct that embodies accountability in performance. The upcoming 1998-99 budget is to be cut by 123 million dollars and administrative costs reduced from 38 percent to 25 percent of total U.N. expenditure. The Secretariat also plans to reduce its volume of documentation by 25 percent.

Asked what his response would be if the United States sought further staff cuts, Annan said the8proposed reduction of 1,000 posts is “a serious proposal that would not gut the organisation.” He added that “any demand for deeper cuts would not be wise.”

Meanwhile, the U.N. Staff Union has warned that the reform process is being implemented without input from workers.

“The Staff Union has long been critical of the administration cutting posts simply to satisfy demands of individual member- states without proper concern for the long-term health of the organisation, especially when the demands for reform remain unspecified and based on inaccurate facts and perceptions,” the union said in a statement issued here.

The Union said it was unfortunate that additional cuts were being announced with no consultation with the staff.

“The international civil service has the most detailed knowledge of operations and can make the most beneficial proposals for efficiency and economy where the need for such truly may exist,” it added.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a former ambassador to the United Nations, last year accused the Secretariat of permitting its staff to grow to “elephantine proportions,” particularly during the days of the Cold War. “Now, in the absence of Cold-War divisions, we are asking the elephant to do gymnastics.”

Albright also proposed that the U.N. Secretariat eliminate waste by privatising services, reducing paperwork, cutting excess staff, stopping unnecessary travel, eliminating some benefits, and minimising the use of consultants.

Last year, the United Nations offered a golden handshake — about 80,000 dollars in hard cash — to every staffer who left the organisation voluntarily. About 400 professional and clerical staffers accepted the offer made in the context of a severe financial crisis.

The United Nations also announced plans last year to spend about 45 million dollars over a three-year period as part of an early retirement programme that was meant to root out staffers who were either inefficient, incompetent, or redundant.