Economy & Trade, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Labour

LABOUR-UN: Workers Condemn Sudden Suspension of Staff Union

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2003 (IPS) - The United Nations, which champions the cause of labour rights around the world, has shut down its own staff union, causing deep feelings of anger and resentment among hundreds of employees.

Senior U.N. officials sent a letter to the Staff Union on Jun. 27 telling union leaders that their mandate had come to an end and that as of Jun. 30, U.N. employees at headquarters would no longer have a right to their representation until further notice.

Deploring the decision by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, union leaders said that management had failed to come up with any compelling and solid reason to justify "this drastic action."

"This is total nonsense," Guy Candusso, vice president of the union, told a gathering of U.N. employees who wanted to know who would represent their interests in the absence of the union. "It never happened before in the history of the Union."

The U.N. Staff Council represents about 5,000 employees, more than half of whom work on a short-term contract basis.

The union’s leaders said they were seriously engaged in the process of holding new elections, but the administration foiled their attempts by initiating a controversy over procedural matters. The administration took advantage of a "technicality" to dissolve their offices, they said, charging that recently the administration tried to block communications to the union’s members.

"The interference with the Staff Union election process indicate that the U.N. is intent on denying its staff of their basic human rights to due process," said Rosemary Waters, president of the union. "This is not an isolated event; it comes after the administration’s interference with the duly elected representatives at other duty stations."

U.N. officials defended the secretary-general’s decision, saying that the union’s leaders had failed to fulfill their obligation to hold new elections on time and therefore they had no reason to continue to remain in office.

"It is more correct to say that the union represents views of 100 or less staffers who should be looking for jobs elsewhere, if they can find anyone to employ them," a senior U.N. official told IPS. "Some of them whom I know are on cushy U.N. salaries spending their days in the lobby."

But many workers believe that the union was shut down because it was relatively more assertive and aggressive in its efforts to address pressing issues such as workplace discrimination, inequalities in the income tax reimbursement system and lack of appropriate child care facilities.

"They are modeling their policies on modern corporate culture," Waters told IPS. "We are working on hard issues. That’s why they came after us."

Like millions of workers in the United States, most U.N. employees who work on a short-term contract basis have no health insurance at all. Union leaders say they raised the issue of health care with the administration, but did not receive a positive response.

"I don’t know why the ILO (International Labour Organization) rules do not apply to U.N. workers," said a U.N. tour guide who tells visitors every day about the achievements made by the United Nations in the areas of human rights, labour rights and the rights women. Yet if she falls sick, she says she has no where to go to for medical help.

"Now the union is gone. Is that how they respect labour rights?" she asked.

Aside from concerns over health insurance, union leaders say many low-ranking employees at the U.N. work in a constant state of fear and anxiety.

"They don’t tell you how many people they are using as slave labour," said Candusso. "If you are working here on G4 (U.S. visa for U.N. work) and your boss doesn’t like you, what are you gong to do?"

He believes that those U.N. employees who come from poor countries will feel more vulnerable when they realise that there is no longer any institution to protect their work rights.

"People are already afraid to speak out because of their contract situation," he said.

Convinced that the decision to dissolve the union contravenes the staff rules and regulations, the union’s leaders have now taken their case to the administrative tribunal. However, it is not clear when the new elections will be held and for how long the U.N. workers will be without a union.