“Treat staff with respect,” says FAO workers’ association

 

The professional workers’ staff association at the FAO, AP-in-FAO has called on employees to vote on a new draft resolution, which intends to improve relations between FAO management and the Staff Representative Bodies (SRBs). This drastic action, which was agreed at an Extraordinary Assembly, follows what the union describe as “an extremely poor track record in terms of human resources policies and actions from Senior Management of FAO.”

 

In an email sent to employees at United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), AP-in-FAO highlighted the reasons why they called the Extraordinary Assembly and listed the grievances, which have been experienced by staff and SRBs in recent times. These have included the removal of provisions to protect staff in the case of a reduction in workforce, new measures for investigating harassment, which no longer involve staff-appointed representatives and a series of inexplicable geographic movements of staff, amongst many others.

 

“What we have not seen is any attempt from Senior Management of FAO to come up with anything resembling a serious and coherent human resources policy that encourages staff, values their contribution and treats them with respect,” said the association in a statement. “Decisions on human resources policies and specific human resources actions have a sense of arbitrariness and lack of transparency, often accompanied by outright clumsiness.”

 

In addition to a reduction in the importance of SRBs, the association believes that FAO senior management has continuously disrespected the opinions of the organisations.

 

“The opinions of the SRBs are being systematically ignored. Consultation with us is only pro-forma, and at this point Senior Management does not even bother to pretend that they are paying any attention to us.”

 

In order to combat this growing problem, the Extraordinary Assembly has created a new draft resolution and urged FAO employees to support it in an online vote. The resolution calls on FAO’s senior management to “engage in constructive consultations and negotiations with SRBs on all issues relating to conditions of work and employment and matters of staff welfare” and “commence consultations with SRBs on a coherent and transparent human resources policy.”

 

This development follows last week’s decision by FAO general service staff to hold three days of strikes, commencing on Monday and has continued to highlight a breakdown in relations between the management and staff at the UN agency.