ROME– FAO employees held an extraordinary assembly Wednesday to discuss industrial action in protest at Director General Jose Graziano da Silva’s “shocking” decision to revoke a key labour contract clause on job security.

 Staffers at the Rome-based food agency staged a second walk out this month Tuesday in protest at the Brazilian chief’s abolition over staunch opposition from the Staff Representative Bodies of the so-called “Reduction in Force” clause in the FAO “administrative manual” laying out working conditions at the UN agency.

 Dr Graziano in a letter to staff on Monday before he left for New York conceded that “I know that these decisions have difficult consequences.”

 He continued: “My main objective in closing the consultation process today is to reduce the uncertainty and anxiety of staff at large and to enable us to work within our budget for the next biennium. I had hoped to conclude this process last Friday and send this letter before I travelled to represent FAO at the United Nations General Assembly, but I agreed to wait until today to receive final comments from the SRBs.”

 Dr Graziano said that dlrs 34 million of the total dlrs 37 million in savings requested by the FAO Conference have been “found” of which about dlrs 28 million come from staff costs and nearly 6 million from non staff costs.

 “This means that roughly 75 percent of the savings are related to staff costs, a percentage that is in line with the share of staff costs in our budget.”

He added “I have instructed OSP to leave the remaining USD 3 million as unidentified savings in the proposal that will be presented to the Council in December. I am confident that Members will recognize the efforts that we are making, and I believe that we can find satisfactory alternatives to identify the remaining USD 3 million from non-staff resources during the biennium.”

 The extraordinary assembly of staffers was called by both the AP in FAO for Professional staff and the UGSS for General staff to consider how to respond to what was described by union officials as a “shocking” and “appalling” unilateral decision by the Director General. One outraged senior staffer dubbed the Director General a “dictator.”

 In all some 56 jobs have been earmarked for abolition at the agency so far.

 Dr Graziano said that  “Management believes that the best and most fair way to achieve the required efficiency savings with the least amount of upheaval and impact on staff at large is to abolish the Reduction in Force (RIF) procedure in the Manual and update the Redeployment Guidelines.”

 He climaxed his letter by announcing that “While I respect the SRBs’ right to differ, following extensive reflection and the advice of my Deputy Director-General, Operations; the Assistant Director-General, CS; the Director of OHR; and the Legal Counsel, I decided to use my right of final determination and took the decision to remove the procedure from the Administrative Manual.”

 Dr Graziano concluded his lengthy letter by claiming “Staff directly affected have given a lot to this Organization and their commitment is in no way under-estimated. I am not pleased to cut encumbered posts, nevertheless these actions need to be implemented.”

 jp