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22 workers call in sick
07/12/2007 09:33 - (SA)
United Nations - Twenty-two tour guides called in sick on Thursday to protest the UN's failure to deal with their demands for better salaries and working conditions, forcing the United Nations to cancel all but large prearranged tours.
UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe confirmed the job action which she said "is apparently related to a number of issues that the tour guides have raised with management in recent weeks".
Emad Hassanin, first vice-president of the UN Staff Union said there are about 50 UN tour guides, who work about 30 hours a week, and only six are UN staff members. The rest are paid on an hourly basis and do not have regular contracts, vacation, or sick leave, he said.
He said there had been an agreement for almost a year to establish a staff-management working group to discuss the contracts and working conditions for the tour guides, but the new Undersecretary-General for Public Information Kiyotaka Akasaka rejected the agreement, which included participation of staff union leaders.
Okabe said a meeting had been scheduled on Thursday afternoon with the tour guides to discuss setting up the working group.
It was unclear whether any of the tour guides showed up, but Akasaka later informed UN officials by e-mail that he had established a working group. It includes three representatives of the tour guides and two staff representatives of the Department of Public Information.
Hassanin said the Staff Union leadership had pointedly been excluded.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, asked about the tour guides, said the fact that 22 called in sick "must have caused some inconvenience to the tours".
"Tour guides are very important (in) connecting the United Nations and the outside world - they have been playing an important role," he said.
Ban said Akasaka would going to discuss the tour guides' complaints.
- AP
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