Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 2, more here -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is now slated to meet with New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio on June 2 at 3:30 pm at City Hall.

   The meeting, rescheduled from the day of the gas explosion in East Harlem, comes at a time when for example the UN Development Program is set to eliminate up to 30% of its jobs in New York. How would Ban Ki-moon justify this?
  
   Ban's Secretariat itself has declined to recognize the Staff Union slate which won elective office in December, essentially breaking the union. How would Ban justify this?

  Beyond the layoff issues, as Inner City Press' March 2014 reporting on New York City Council members and human rights sketched out, Ban's refusal to take responsibility for UN Peacekeeping bringing cholera to Haiti has many grumbling in NYC. If Ban met the New York City Council, this issue would come up.

   But Ban accepts as his head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous of France, who outright refuses to answer Press questions, video here and here. This would never fly in New York City -- outside of the UN.

 On March 25, 2014 Inner City Press reported on the Urban Justice Center's report card on the Council, assigning grade from A+ down to a C and C- in Staten Island to members of the NYC City Council.

  The report "revisited two recent land-use projects -- Willets Point in Queens and Seward Park Extension Urban Park Renewal Area in Manhattan, which impact New Yorkers' housing, workers' and government accountability rights. It also discusses the human rights implications of waterfront redevelopment projects in Mill Basin, Brooklyn and St. George, Staten Island in post Hurricane Sandy New York City."

   On current June 2014 UN system layoff proposals, for many weeks there have been rumblings about “Helen Clark's cut backs” at UNDP, the UN Development Program.

   This week the rumbling spiked, with the UNDP staff union holding a meeting in the UN's basement on May 29 to discuss the loss of up to 30% of UNDP's jobs in New York.

  So on May 31 when Helen Clark re-tweeted praise of her visit to Belarus from her representative in the country, Sri Lankan national Sanaka Samarasinha, Inner City Press replied: "What about the UNDP layoffs?"

   The response came not from Helen Clark -- who rarely if ever holds question and answer press availabilities at the UN in New York -- but from Samarasinha, that the UNDP layoffs "must always be transparent & being fit for purpose. We strive toward that end."

  Inner City Press thanked Samarasinha, adding it will try to make the proposed layoffs transparent. In that spirit, we now publish Helen Clark's May 19 letter to staff:

  Another source told Inner City Press that Clark wants to “force people, many women, many who are head of household, to be deported after one month [when their G-4 visas would expire], and force many staff who are just 2, 3, 4 years from early retirement age out, so they will miss out on their after-service health insurance. If they get away with this at UNDP, it will quickly spread to the rest of the UN system. Oh, and by the way, the men and women at D1, D2 and ASGs are unaffected.”

  This, Secretariat staff say, is similar to current Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's mobility or “5 year rule” - now imposed on regular staff, but seemingly not applied Ban's higher ranking friends. UNease is growing. Another description here, from IPS.

  The connection is that Helen Clark wants to replace Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General, despite the the post as his successor said to be reserved for the Eastern European group which has never held it. Clark is banking on gender trumping geography, and job cutting seems to be her campaign issue for Western, donor countries.

  A well placed source tells Inner City Press Clark told management currently employed at UNDP to “drop what they are doing and work on her campaign” for S-G, they would be rewarded with a higher post in the Secretariat if she comes to replace Ban.

Footnote: In the Secretariat, the hold-over staff union which barely fought Ban during its time in power now presents itself as supporting UNDP worker, and as... still the staff union, despite the December vote and controversy since.
  
   This rift only benefits those pushing for lay-off, just like the UN's Censorship Alliance getting the first question and big room results in softball coverage of the UN, here. We'll and the Free UN Coalition for Access will have more on this.