Fighting To Keep My Job: Case Study of a United Nations Retiree

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, New York. No reason was given why such a drastic action was being taken against him, beyond a vague allusion made to Mr. Annan, Assistant Secretary-General, Office of Human Resources Management (ASG-OHRM), that he had "not been successful in representing the Council or the Council's interests". 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 New York at your pleasure... I will continue to serve the Council loyally, take criticism in a constructive spirit, and always strive to do better.... But dropping my job is an entirely different proposition, and I crave your understanding not to pursue it". 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 Tanzania. He vows to himself: "I will fight this one too. And I will win". And win he did. The author was reinstated, returned to Rome, and - ironically enough - was appointed Officer-in-Charge of the Council, on the expiry of the Executive Director's contract! Read on.

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.