By Umaru Fofana
Hundreds of Sierra Leonean staff working for 11 UN agencies in the country have resolved to embark on an indefinite sit-down strike if their demands over pay and conditions are not met by the 25 November 2019.
The staff – from UNDP, IOM, WHO, UN Women, UNFPA, FAO, UNICEF, UNOPS, WFP, UNAIDS and UNIDO – have issued a 21-day notice within which period they are wearing black to go to work.
It followed their decision to boycott UN Day celebrations on 24 October this year citing “a grossly inhuman and unfair salary scale” which they claim is “the lowest any UN national staff get anywhere in the world”.
In a four-page letter to the UN Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, they say they refused to attend UN Day celebrations as it “was better spent in mourning because of the inequalities and injustices faced by national staff regarding their emoluments”.
In the letter, dated 25 October 2019, they also rejected as “unnecessary” a proposal by the UN Country Team for a “joint task force to negotiate staff welfare”, because it had been tried in the “past many years” and had been a waste of time.
They also dismissed a suggestion by the UN Country Team for two national staff members to join senior management to the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) in New York to chart the way forward for staff welfare. They say this is unnecessary as it is the responsibility of the Resident Coordinator to go alone and seek staff welfare.
The aggrieved workers have resolved that the ways to ending the apparent impasse include a 100% increase in salary “to alleviate the current socioeconomic difficulties by national staff and their dependants”.
They say the proforma cost, under which programmes are drawn up and staff employed, is not reflective of the pay workers get. A source told Politico that even though the salaries are paid in leones, they are pegged to US dollars under the proforma cost, but that such salaries are not revised however much the leone depreciates against the dollar, rather the UN keeps the money as “exchange rate gain”.
The workers ask for a UN Mission to come to Sierra Leone “to undertake a comparative regional scoping visit, to ascertain conditions that warrant the regionalisation of national staff salaries and other benefits”.
They warn that they are “committed to collectively defend” all their members “against any open or disguised intimidation or threats of contract termination or nonrenewal” without due process.
The UN Resident Coordinator, Sunil Saigal says there is no conflict between the UN management in Freetown and the national staff. He said they were “certainly very concerned” about the situation, stressing that there is some misunderstanding.
“We are directly engaged with them to see how we can address [their concerns]. We are a global system and we have what is known as the Common System when it comes to determining salaries across the world”, he said.
Saigal emphasised that that Common System “is entirely guided and managed by the International Civil Service Commission which is an independent body established by the UN General Assembly [whose] members are appointed by the Secretary General”. He said the Commission laid down the methodologies for determining salaries in every duty station across the world.
“I have no say in establishing the salaries of any staff. It is something that is determined centrally,” he said.
On salaries between national staff in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in especially the region, the Resident Coordinator said that was “not relevant”.
“It is not the amount. What you have to look at is the purchasing power in the country” he said.
“We compare salaries with the best [or] the highest-paying employers in every given country” he went on.
“On that basis and on the basis of market prices we do a survey of market prices on food and non-food items…and prices are reported to New York and the formula determined by the International Civil Service Commission”.
He said they were currently looking into the current rate of inflation in the country relative to salaries, adding: “We are seriously trying to find solutions…but because we are dealing with a global system it is something that is not done just overnight”.
The UN boss in the country said they were trying to improve the lives of people in Sierra Leone and it behoved them to “take care of our own people first and I do believe that we are trying to do that”.
Sources close to the UN in New York told Politico that the country team would soon send a team to Guinea and Liberia for a salary survey and that they had contacted the World Bank in Freetown. National staff at the Bank have much better pay and conditions.
© 2019 Politico Online
