Fighting To Keep My Job
Case Study of a United Nations Retiree
by
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"Dear Mr. Annan, I submit to you that I am the victim of an illegal act, intentionally designed and perpetrated to kill my career, for no better reason than that I am standing in somebody's way. I am not just crying for a job and a salary. Something much higher is at stake - a cry for justice. I beseech you, as the highest official responsible to the Secretary-General for my welfare as a worker in this organization, to protect me. But if I must die, I will die in action, fighting. I will not lie down and close my eyes to be butchered ... " (Author)
"This is not a case of a staff member being denied a core post and put on a non-core post for reasons of retrenchment or reassignment. It is a case of a staff member being deprived of a core post and put on a non-core post for unknown reasons, or for no reasons at all beyond the fact that such a procedure makes it easy for the Executive Director to take the next step, that is, to expel him from the Organization ... " (Legal counsel)
"The fight for my job began in earnest in mid-1989. The Executive Director had given me till the end of 1989 to quit the Council. He even stopped giving me assignments. This left me free to exercise my mind solely on two issues: first, what to do to save my job; and second, how to find an alternative job, in case my efforts to save my present one failed.
Day in and day out, I would commute as usual by Metro-North Railroad between my home in Peekskill, Westchester County, and Grand Central Station in mid-Manhattan. From there, I would walk to my office at One U.N. Plaza. At the office, staff morale was now at its lowest. Ms. Newell and I were barely on talking terms. Clearly, the contents of the so-called personal and confidential letter to me had been leaked, and were now common knowledge, if not common talk, in the U.N. corridors. My adversaries were jubilant, my sympathisers pitiful. All of them knew that my days were numbered. I had been shown the door!
The year 1990 is exactly the year in which, had the Executive Director had his way, I would have packed my bags and bade an unceremonious farewell to the United Nations. Instead, it turned out - not by accident but by very purposeful design - to be the busiest and most creative year in the entire history of my international service.
Three things preoccupied my mind and prompted everything that I did. My first preoccupation was to keep watch on the Executive Director. I knew he would resort to all sorts of manoeouvres in an effort to be rid of me: and I was determined to match - if possible outmatch - every move of his with a counter-move of mine. Convinced that it was now or never, I had to be constantly on the alert, ready to fight him every step of the way. I was not going to be caught off guard, and wake up one morning to find that my 'separation from the service' was a fait accompli. I knew that such a possibility always existed, and I had to do all I could to forestall it.
My second preoccupation was to ensure that I had to do something positive - call it image building , or re-building, if you like. This meant that I had to involve myself in some visible activity, or activities, of value to the United Nations, as a standing demonstration to anyone that I was still able and willing to perform my duties competently and creatively, unscathed by the scandal that surrounded me. It was a way of keeping my morale high.
My third preoccupation, of course, and by far the most important, was to prepare to fight, tooth and nail, the Executive Director himself, taking maximum advantage of the excellent legal services of my friend and counsel, Mr. Thomas Dube of Zimbabwe. The fortifying responses I kept receiving from my high-level contacts provided me with the moral ammunition I needed to wage the legal struggle confidently.
The fact that my fight along these three fronts was so successful was due, in large part, to the sympathy and cooperation I received from my friends and colleagues, inside as well as outside the United Nations ... " (Author).
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About the Book
Fighting to Keep My Job highlights an unpleasant episode during the author’s 10-year career with the World Food Council. On 12 June 1989, the Executive Director of the Council notified him of his intention to terminate his employment by 31 December 1989.
The author recalls his shock at the news. “I was speechless. This was a letter from my boss. It was the last thing I had expected. What had I done?”
The author was at the time Chief of the Council’s Liaison Office at United Nations Headquarters,
A moving narrative of the author’s entire 35-year career, the book recounts vividly the steps taken by him in his successful bid to save his job. The case is well-documented in correspondence between himself, his legal counsel, the ASG-OHRM, and the Executive Director; and in the proceedings of the Joint Appeals Board.
Pleading with his boss, the author says: “I know that I am in
But this fell on deaf ears. The Executive Director’s single-minded aim was to be rid of him.
In the ensuing struggle, the author draws inspiration from memories of another successful fight he once had with his Permanent Secretary in
And win he did. The author was reinstated, returned to
About the Author
Peter Eliezer Temu graduated from the Food Research Institute of Stanford University, California, with a PhD in the economics of agricultural marketing. A national of Tanzania, Dr. Temu spent his first ten years in teaching and research: in Kenya, as economics tutor at the College of Social Studies, and later as Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi; and in Tanzania as Director of the Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar es Salaam.
From 1974 to 1977 he served as National Planning Controller in the Tanzanian Ministry of Finance and Planning, and later as Director of the Institute of Finance Management in Dar es Salaam.
For over 19 years Dr. Temu worked for the United Nations as a professional economist: in Addis Ababa as Senior Economist, Economic Commission for Africa; in Rome as Chief, Policy Development and Economic Analysis, World Food Concil; in New York as Chief of the World Food Council's Liaison Office; and finally in Lusaka as Director of the sub-regional office of the Economic Commission for Africa, from where he retired in 1996.