UNITED NATIONS,
September 21 – After UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres
announced his new "gender parity"
plan, he was immediately hit
with complaints about lack of
consultation from the UN staff
unions. Inner City Press has
obtained their letter, which
says: "Wednesday 20 September
2017
Dear Secretary-General, Since
coming to office, you have
repeated the importance of
healthy staff- management
relations, especially in the
context of many forthcoming
reforms.
One of the reforms is your
strategy on gender parity.
From the start it was made
clear that any proposed
strategy would be the subject
of consultations through
the Staff-Management Committee
(SMC), in line with the staff
regulations and rules
(ST/SGB/2017/1) that you
promulgated in January this
year.
In May, your office gave a
brief presentation of broad
ideas relating to the
strategy. It noted that the
briefing was not a
consultation and clarified
that once these
ideas were more complete,
formal staff-management
consultations through SMC
would be organized. Confirming
this, your office called
shortly after for an SMC
meeting, to be held on 19
July. Your office then
requested that the meeting be
postponed to 23 August. On 4
August your office requested a
further postponement,
citing the need for further
work on the proposals.
On 13 September the strategy
was published without warning
and with no consultations
having taken place.
We trust that you will
understand our surprise and
disappointment at the turn of
events. The strategy, on a
subject that matters greatly
to the UN, contains important
and specific measures that
will affect staff welfare. Not
only has this strategy been
published without
consultation, staff unions
were also misled into
believing there would be
consultations. Further, the
strategy document incorrectly
claims that staff unions were
consulted.
Consultations with staff not
only ensure the possibility of
staff buy-in, but allow us to
seek clarifications that can
be shared with our
constituents. An example of an
issue brought to our attention
is that department heads will
be held accountable for
increasing female
participation in the workforce
by between four and five
percentage points a year.
Given that your report to the
General Assembly (Composition
of the Secretariat – A/72/123)
forecasts an annual rate of
retirement of 1.8 percent for
D staff and 0.5 percent for P
staff, and in the context of
shrinking budgets and fewer
posts, we would be curious to
see the mathematical
calculations behind these
targets.
We further note that the
President of the SMC, Mr.
David Yeandle, has also
expressed his surprise at the
way in which the strategy
document was issued.
It is unfortunate that the
actions taken by your office
have undermined the trust of
staff in the future of
staff-management relations at
a time when a number of
important reforms are being
planned and especially in
light of the letter we wrote
to you on 18 August
reiterating “our commitment...
to work closely with you and
your management team on the
formulation and implementation
of these reforms”.
In order to restore trust in
staff-management relations at
the UN, we ask that the
strategy be submitted to the
SMC in draft form, with all
recommendations considered
tentative pending
consultation.
Yours sincerely,
The staff unions of the United
Nations:
ESCAP Staff Association
Field Staff Union
Staff Council of ESCWA
Staff Council of ECA
Staff Council of ECLAC
Staff Council of UNHCR
UN Criminal Tribunals Staff
Union
UNDP/UNOPS/UNFPA/UNWOMEN Staff
Council
UNICEF Global Staff
Association
UNOG Staff Coordinating
Council
UN Staff Union (New York)
UN Staff Union Nairobi
UN Staff Union Vienna
UN University Staff Council
cc: Ms. Jan Beagle, USG
Department of Managment
Mr. David Yeandle, President
of the Staff-Management
Committee"
We'll have more on this. The
UN is limiting
access passes during this
UN General Assembly week to
what it calls “resident
correspondents,” many of whom
rarely even come into the UN,
some whom have never asked any
questions. Meanwhile the
investigative Press asking the
UN every day about UN reform
and corruption, Cameroon, Sri
Lanka, Yemen, Burundi and
elsewhere, is banned from the
passes, as are the many
journalists working out of the
UN Media Center (in which the
handler of French President
Emmanuel Macron took over a
whole row, despite claims
there are no assigned seats).
The UN's holdover spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, when Inner
City Press asked, said le
Media Center, ce n'est pas
moi. He also said, in a
"background" briefing he tried
to exclude Inner City Press
from, that he would be sending
around the "grid" of UNGA
events. He never sent it to
Inner City Press, nor
presumably to the other
journalists the UN denies the
special "UNCA" passes to. But
Inner City Press obtained the
grid from a disgusted
whistleblower elsewhere in the
UN system and now in the
spirit of the Free UN
Coalition for Access puts it
online here,
for wider use. (If Scribd
stops working, as it sometimes
does, it is also on Patreon,
here.) Open the UN. On
September 15, as Inner City
Press worked in the small
booth it's confined to since
being evicted from the UN
Press Briefing Room and its UN
office by UN Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, it saw some
insider correspondents passing
by and into the Briefing Room.
To not fall into a trap, Inner
City Press asked UN Media
Accreditation what the event
was, of which it was not
informed. You can go in, it
was told. Inside, three senior
UN officials we'll leave
unnamed were giving a
background briefing about
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres' schedule for the
General Assembly week. Inner
City Press asked why there are
no events about Yemen and
Burundi, and told the
officials to tell Guterres to
ensure that all journalists
are treated fairly. Dujarric
cut that off and said, "You're
here, aren't you?" Only
because the other venue he'd
tried to invite his friends to
was too small and the event
was moved. This is how today's
UN is working - or not
working. This too: Inner City
Press has learned that last
month, after it asked Dujarric
how the UN had vetted a
shadowy event co-sponsored as
exposed in the Ng Lap Seng /
John Ashe trial by a business
interest and two developing
world countries, Dujarric told
the Permanent Representative
of one of the sponsors NOT to
talk to Inner City Press, it
would just write about it. The
UN has arrived at the
situation in which its
holdover spokesman tells
member states not to speak to
the Press. Now those at the
top of the UN know about it -
what will they do? They are
responsible. New DPI chief
Alison Smale has as of yet
changed nothing, has not even
responded to a petition on the
issues. Retaliation for
coverage continues, and
exclusion or attempted
exclusion from UN
"Communications." Reform was
discussed and even, for once,
asked about, but only vaguely.
The UN and its affiliates were
bribed by Ng Lap Seng, as
shown in a trial this summer.
No answers. Back last Friday
an UNnamed UN speaker in what
was declared a background
briefing not made available to
media coming to cover the GA
week told Inner City Press
that while it is not a
“resident correspondent” - it
was evicted while covering the
Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe
corruption scandal - it could
perhaps stakeout for example
the Yemen meeting, but only
with an “escort.” That is a UN
minder, some of whom ask Inner
City Press who it is trying to
speak to. This is
UNacceptable, the Free
UN Coalition for Access
says, as it the weakened wi-fi
and lack of LAN lines for any
but the insider correspondents
of UNCA. The UNnamed speaker
said that the limitation of
the access passes was agreed
to, or requested by, UN
Security and this UNCA (UN
Correspondents Association
a/k/a UN Censorship Alliance).
It was for seeking to cover
this group's event in the UN
Press Briefing Room,
presumptively open to all
journalists, to see if they
would address having received
funds from then indict, now
convicted Ng Lap Seng that
Inner City Press was evicted
and still restricted. We'll
have more on this, and access
issues before, during and
after #UNGA72. The access
briefing should have been
webcast to journalists coming;
UN Security should have been
there, and the Department of
Public Information leadership
reportedly beginning work on
September 8 - they have been
asked, for reforms. When UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres gave a speech to
honor fallen UN staff on
September 8, he took the
opportunity to say that if the
sacrifices of UN staff were
known by unnamed UN critics,
they wouldn't say what they
do. But the UN is in need of
reform, which requires
critique. And, frankly,
sometime UN staff and experts
are killed with some role
played by UN negligence, for
example in Kasai in the
Democratic Republic of the
Congo. The problem with what
Guterres said is that it
emboldens others in the UN
system to simply shout down or
vilify critical voices,
sometimes to the point of
outright physical eviction and
restriction, and sometimes
short of that. Only the
previous day, the acting head
of the UN Department of Public
Information Maher Nasser on
his last day in the post
allowed a heckler to block
Inner City Press' questions
about the UN's duty to the
Haitian families impacted by
the cholera it brought to the
island - then when Inner City
Press asked a legal immunity
question, to say loudly, It's
always about you. Well, DPI
did evict Inner City Press
with no hearing or appeals,
and has restricted it every
day since. But speeches such
as that on September 8,
UNcorrected, validate
targeting and censorship.
Nasser's successor Alison
Smale has been written to, for
reversal. And Guterres did tell a
moving story about staff in
Chad's Abeche - which Inner
City Press covered,
before DPI's eviction meant it
was no longer notified of or
allowed to cover UN Security
Council trips. Here
was from the UN Staff Day
Parade of Nations. We'll have
more on this. For weeks the UN
had promoted its book event
about New York City and the
UN, featuring author Pamela
Hanlon.
But when Inner
City Press went and asked
about the UN having brought
cholera to Haiti and paid
nothing, and whether Haitians
in Brooklyn had been able to
get any accountability from
the UN, there was no answer.
A heckler in the
audience said loudly that the
question was not appropriate.
Video here.
So Inner City Press followed
up on Ms. Hanlon's statement
that the land under the UN is
still US territory. If so,
what of John Ashe selling
diplomatic posts from inside
his UN General Assembly
President's office, and Inner
City Press for covering the
scandal being thrown out onto
First Avenue by eight UN
Security officers? Audio here.
(NYPD told Inner City Press it
has no jurisdiction to take
criminal complaints, even for
assault, for anything east of
the First Avenue curb.)
That question wasn't answered,
either, including by Penny
Abeywardena, Commissioner of
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Office
for International Affairs.
Instead Maher
Nasser, in charge of the UN
Department of Public
Information from April 1 until
tomorrow, said “it's always
about you” and ended the
event, encouraging those
present to buy books for
signing. And so it goes at the
UN.
***
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