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Humanitarian Practitioners' UnionSubmitted by duncan on July 3, 2006 - 12:25pm.
Humanitarian workers of the world unite! Has anyone has had any experiences joining or forming a workers union during a placement with a humanitarian agency in a non-OECD country? And if not, would an international humanitarian workers union - with a moral force for NGO managers to deal with even if not any legal backbone in many nations - be an idea worth pursuing? Consider the context... The UN have their own staff union, and most OECD countries have social services unions of one sort or another. The Humanitarian Charter, Sphere Standards and Code of Conduct all guide organisational responses to ensure the rights of those affected by disasters are respected. People in Aid, Aid Workers Network and others promote best oractices in human resource management amongst humanitarian agencies. But even the best of managers make mistakes, which are sometimes at the expense of aid practitioners. And many governments receiving international aid continue to restrict domestic trade unions from organising national workers, nevermind expatriates. And even where local social services trade unions exist, expatriate aid workers on short-term placements are unlikely to find them before their contract expires. So what do you think? Tags: Codes & Standards
The idea proposed by Duncan seems to me an expression of a felt need by most expatriates. But I wonder if the solution is to create a international body of aid workers union or ensure that such a body exist at national level. For exemple in Spain, there is not a body which represents the interest and labour needs of aid workers (or professionals at the humanitarian and international development sector at large). And traditional unions does not always address properly the needs of this group of workers. Do you know of any country where this body exist Just wanted to voice my agreement with Duncan. It would be very useful to have some mechanism for national staff as well as international staff working in the humanitarian sector to form a staff association or union. Some NGOs in some countries are better than others at negotiating with national staff members. As was previously commented, many countries do not have unions existing in-country which national staff could join. An international union could be one way of addressing this issue, if a mechanism could be set up to ensure participation of staff, in spite of their limited access to email and other communications. This idea holds alot of promise. On the one hand, I feel that aid workers have been abused in a number of situations. It is somehow assumed that aid workers should regularly work crazy hours, catch 3am flights with no compensation, have to endure conditions that are not conducive to high quality work. If aid workers had a union or union-like organization which would create minimum guidelines for work conditions, it would be quite helpful. At the same time, I feel that there are quite a few incompetent people who would never be hired in the private sector if they lived in New York, for example, but are somehow housed in villas and driven around by drivers in 3rd World countries while producing quite little. So if there is some kind of union, I feel strongly there should be a certification or accreditation process as well to make sure that people are actually competent at solving development problems. SEO Tips : Starwebworld, is an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) blog. This is providing the latest SEO tips and News. Best SEO Company India : Starwebworld, is an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) blog. This is providing the latest SEO tips and News. SEO Tips : Starwebworld, is an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) blog. This is providing the latest SEO tips and News. |
Responding to Duncan's article,
honestly i think that is a brilliant ambition which can be persued. Taking in considerations that the bodies which exist have their own agendas that make their priority actions, hence your idea might never be anywhere near their thoughts.
Hence I'm saying, it can all begin from here for those who concur with their idea.