COVID-19 and working at UN

During these difficult times, we all need to pull together to fight something bigger than ourselves. We of course, must make sacrifices to this end. But if our actions could prevent even one death, would that not make it all worth it? Of course, our sacrifices seem small compared to the benefits. Stay at home, don’t have physical contact with anyone outside your household, no large gatherings. This is as much for the benefit of humanity at large as it is for ourselves.

This has wrought some important and noticeable changes in the way that we—the UN employees all work. Obviously, we are all at home, save for a few essential workers who must be physically present at the Palais in order to allow everything to function. This new way of working relies heavily on our IT infrastructure which has been painstakingly put in place by our dedicated team of contractors and staff in ICTS. Every time you send an email, talk to a colleague on Jabber, meet on Teams or share funny cat videos on Skype for Business, you do so because of us in IT.

However, there are 2 distinct castes of workers in IT. Staff and UNOPS contractors. We perform the same tasks. We get the same level of respect. Our work is equally important to the functioning of the UN in general, even more so during these times. One caste is afforded the luxuries of tax-free pay, health benefits, dependency allowance, education grants, free language courses and many others. The other caste? Taxable pay. No practical assistance when dealing with local authorities. No pension. Nothing.

We do the same work, yet one is clearly inferior to the other.

If you are concerned about this, you should know that the UNOG Staff Council, as it currently is, is concerned only with keeping the status quo. They are, after all, members of the upper caste. Why should they care about lowly contractors? Yet, there is a faint voice that will rise up and fight for us. That voice? The Staff Alliance.