| While UN Guterres Lives in
Mansion His Hot Desking Silences Staff From NY
to Geneva
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFTracker
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
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Source
UN GATE / WALL
ST, Dec 9 – The UN's
false promise of
"hot-desking," exposed by
Inner City Press here
before it was thown out of the
UN by Antonio Guterres, was
justified on the basis of
improving collaboration
between team
members. Spaces
were supposedly to be made
available on a first come
first served basis so that
spaces would not be wasted
when a staff member was either
not at work or otherwise
occupied elsewhere.
However, as time
has gone on, most staff have
been each assigned a tiny
space in the new "hotdesk"
benches layout so that they
can be found at any time and
the assigned space cannot be
used by anyone else, resulting
in exactly the same as before
the cubicles and offices were
ripped out at massive expense
after already being renovated
during the Capital Master
Plan.
Staff are
now also told they cannot have
conversations at their desk
spaces because it disturbs
their neighboring
colleagues. So the
justifications provided to
plausibly sell the hotdesking
concept as improving
productivity and collaboration
were all false, in reality (as
originally claimed by staff)
the entire basis was solely to
cram more staff into smaller
spaces and reduce rents, to
demoralize staff and encourage
staff to resign and/or take
packages to leave. So here we
now see this expanding to
Geneva in this, published
yesterday:
Signature of
major renovation contract at
UN Geneva The Strategic
Heritage Plan, often called
SHP, refers to the renovation
of the Palais des Nations of
the UN Office at Geneva. It
has taken another step forward
with the signing of the
contract to renovate the
historic buildings, the
largest and most complex part
of the CHF 836.5M project. The
United Nations selected a
consortium of Italian and
Swiss firms, Renovation Palais
des Nations SA, following an
international competitive
tender process. The cost of
renovating these buildings is
estimated at 270 million
CHF. A separate tender
process will later take place
for the renovation of Building
E, which was constructed in
the 1970s. The work is
expected to begin in spring
2020 following an initial
pre-construction phase. “I am
delighted that we have now
selected the right partners
for the next phase of the
Strategic Heritage Plan,” said
Tatiana Valovaya,
Director-General of the UN
Office at Geneva. “Upgrading
the mobility and safety
standards of the Palais des
Nations and improving our
conferencing facilities will
enable us to face the
challenges of the 21st century
with confidence and be a
world-class conference
centre.” The sprawling campus
on the banks of Lake Geneva is
long overdue for a renovation.
It has suffered from flooding,
no longer meets modern fire
and safety codes, and has
mechanical and electrical
systems that are beyond their
life cycle. With more than
3,000 Secretariat staff, it is
the biggest duty station
outside of United Nations
Headquarters in New York. Once
the Strategic Heritage Plan is
completed in 2024, an
additional 700 UN staff
members will relocate to the
Palais des Nations. The
SHP was approved by the
General Assembly in 2015. The
project, which includes the
construction of a new
permanent office building,
will extensively renovate the
main Palais des Nations
complex of buildings, much of
which dates back to the 1930s.
The historic buildings will be
fully renovated, with priority
given to protecting the
heritage of the Palais des
Nations, while modernizing the
core building and conference
support systems, improving
working conditions and safety,
and accessibility for persons
with disabilities.
Welcome Geneva to the already
discredited hot desking and
failed flexible work place
initiatives to cram more and
more staff into smaller spaces
to save money.
Meanwhile the UN
has been so corrupted and
dominated by China under UNSG
Antonio Guterres that now its
ostensible journalist award is
controlled with Chinese state
media. On November 22 Chinese
state media "won" the third
vice presidency of UNCA,
albeit with only 40 votes of
only 143 ballots supposedly
representing journalists
worldwide. The United Nations
Correspondents Association is
totally corrupt. Results here:
state media in. Low turn out
for a dwindling membership.
Yet Guterres uses his scribes
to continue censorship.
On
December 6 Inner City Press
now banned from the UN 521
days and counting went after
reporting on the SDNY court
all day down to Wall Street.
There Stephane Dujarric, the
spokesman for Guterres and Ban
Ki-moon before him, sauntered
in tuxedo and flowers. Despite
a previous on-camera
promise to answer banned
Inner City Press' questions,
he has not, on ranging from
Cameroon to UN child rapes.
And on December 6, asked, he
did not. Inner City Press
tweeted video
here.
The event? UNCA was selling
access to Guterres to a slew
of people in tuxedos and
gowns, many with no UN
connection.
Video here.
Inner City Press
asked questions outside, of
Guterres' chief of staff
Viotta and USG Melissa
Flemming (no answers),
Nigerian UN PGA Bande about
Cameroon (no answer), and to
UNCA correspondents (VOA's
long time UN bureau chief
responded with her middle
finger). Some were more
polite, noted.
An
expensive car was auctioned
outside. Inside, sponsored by
a seller of facial sheet
masks, UNCA celebrated state
media and Egypt. Inner City
Press has a right to re-enter
the UN and asked questions,
just like the retired and
state media Guterres and
Fleming allow in. We will
continue on this.
Now after
UNsurprisingly omitting any
and all coverage of China's
abuse of Uighurs and Hong Kong
from its bogus awards, the UN
Censorship Alliance will hold
a glitzy celebration of
Guterres on Wall Street, no
less, on December 6. They are
entirely corrupt. No questions
on the new UN rapes, links to
fraud and bribes, nothing.
Another
proof: two of the top six
spots are controlled by Italy,
including a Treasurer
Giampaolo Pioli who rented one
of his Manhattan apartments,
funded by a scam pasta
company, to a Sri Lankan war
criminal. He and Valeria
Robecco quickly told a
"publication" with UN office
space, ONUItalia, that UNCA
"remains Italian." The UN Correspondents
Association is
totally
corrupt.
With China having
a veto in UNCA, will stories
about CEFC China Energy's
proven bribery at the UN, and
bid to buy an oil company
linked to Guterres through the
Gulbenkian Foundation, even
get through a first round of
review with this Chinese
"journalism" veto? Fat chance.
***
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