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UN Tour Guides Protest Pay, Conditions
Twenty-two tour guides called in sick on Thursday to protest the U.N.'s failure to deal with their demands for better salaries and working conditions, forcing all but large, prearranged tours to be canceled.The United Nations employs about 50 guides, who each work around 30 hours a week, showing visitors around the headquarters building in New York. Only six are staff members, said Emad Hassanin, first vice president of the U.N. Staff Union. The rest are paid on an hourly basis and don't have regular contracts, vacation, or sick leave, he said.
Hassanin said a previous agreement to establish a working group to discuss contracts and working conditions for the tour guides was thrown out by the new Undersecretary-General for Public Information Kiyotaka Akasaka. But Okabe said a meeting with the tour guides had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon to again discuss creating a working group. It was unclear if any of the tour guides showed up, but Akasaka later informed U.N. officials by e-mail that he had set up a 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. The old agreement had called for union leaders to be included.
Posted by: Seafarious 2007-12-10 |
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