Amid UN80 Pay to Play Antonio Guterres Cronies Accused of Intimidation by Staff

Amid UN80 Pay to Play Antonio Guterres Cronies Accused of Intimidation by Staff by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack UN GATE, June 28 – How corrupt is today's UN under Antonio Guterres? Now his staff tell Inner City Press things have hit a new low about which his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming refuse all Press question. We publish this: Dear Matthew Russell Lee This is for your action please. We write to bring to your urgent attention a deeply troubling pattern of conduct at the highest levels of the United Nations Secretariat. Under the leadership of Secretary-General António Guterres, the rights of UN staff union representatives are being systematically undermined — a disturbing irony for an organization that holds itself out as the world's foremost champion of human rights, labour dignity, and freedom of association.   The Hypocrisy: Preaching Freedom of Association, Practising Intimidation  The United Nations publicly champions ILO conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining, promotes workers' rights globally, and condemns governments that suppress union activity. Yet within its own walls, staff representatives who dare to raise concerns about working conditions, selection irregularities, or managerial misconduct face a very different reality.   When senior UN staff union delegates are granted meetings with the Secretary-General's office, what transpires is revealing: delegates divert discussions away from staff concerns and toward their own career prospects. This is not coincidence — it is the predictable result of an environment in which proximity to the Secretary-General's office is understood to determine professional survival. The message is clear: raise difficult issues and face professional consequences. Stay silent and prosper.   Intimidation as Institutional Policy  The Secretary-General's office does not suppress dissent through overt decrees. The mechanism is subtler and more insidious: it operates through the implicit threat of career harm, through the slow marginalization of those who speak up, and through the normalization of silence as the price of institutional belonging. Staff union representatives — whose entire mandate is to speak truth to power on behalf of the workforce — have been effectively neutered.   This constitutes harassment in its institutional form. It does not require shouting or direct threats. It requires only that staff know, through experience and observation, that raising legitimate concerns about misconduct, false statements by senior counsel, or selection panel conflicts of interest will be met not with accountability — but with professional retaliation.   The Worst Offender in Promoting Freedom of Unions  It is a damning indictment that the United Nations — an organization whose very founding charter enshrines human dignity, justice, and equal rights — has become among the worst actors in the world in suppressing the freedom of its own staff unions. Member States contribute billions in assessed contributions to fund an institution that turns around and denies its own employees the most basic labour protections it demands of others.   Secretary-General Guterres has had ample opportunity to reform this culture. Instead, under his tenure, impunity has deepened. Senior officials who make false statements in formal proceedings face no accountability. Staff representatives who challenge misconduct face isolation. The organization's internal justice mechanisms — including the UN Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) — have been used not to vindicate staff rights, but to shield institutional wrongdoing.   Our Appeal to the International Press  We call upon investigative journalists and international media to examine the following with urgency:   â€¢  The systematic silencing of UN staff union representatives through career-based intimidation within the Secretary-General's office.   â€¢  The pattern whereby union delegates, when meeting senior UN leadership, discuss their personal career advancement rather than staff grievances — and the structural pressures that produce this outcome.   •  Documented cases in which false statements by the Secretary-General's senior counsel during internal selection and disciplinary proceedings have gone unpunished, with accountability findings vacated by the UN Appeals Tribunal.   •  The broader culture of impunity within the UN Secretariat under António Guterres, in which institutional self-protection consistently overrides staff rights.   •  The stark contradiction between the United Nations' external advocacy for freedom of association and its internal suppression of precisely those freedoms.      The United Nations cannot credibly call upon the world to uphold labour rights, protect whistleblowers, and guarantee freedom of association while trampling those very rights within its own corridors. This contradiction demands scrutiny — and the international press is uniquely positioned to provide it.   Silence is not neutrality. In the face of institutional harassment of union representatives, silence is complicity. We urge you to investigate, to report, and to hold the United Nations accountable to the standards it demands of others. We're doing it. Others? Fat chance, as with USUN Mike Waltz, who is delaying response on a basic FOIA request about inaction on UN censorship and banning of US based Press. This is about inequitable cuts at UN ESCAP in Thailand: Dear Matthew Russell Lee,  The plan for abolishment from UN-ESCAP  is directed only at GS staff, while senior positions—P-5, D-1, D-2, and USG—remain untouched. The salary of a single one of these officials is equivalent to that of fifty or more local staff members. If justice truly mattered, it would be these high-level posts under review—not the livelihoods of ordinary staff. Many of these officials are beyond retirement age, largely inactive in their offices, while their administrative assistants act more like personal aides or cooks than contributors to the Organization’s actual work.  This is not about fairness—it is about selfishness and corruption. Guterres and his team have revealed themselves as weak, wicked, and corrupt. They cling to their privileges while sacrificing the most vulnerable staff, simply because they hold the power to decide.  It is therefore no surprise that more and more staff are coming to agree that the UN has become useless, especially under the failed leadership of Guterres.  Guterres appears increasingly surrounded by what staff describe as “phone-call human resource advisors and legal officers.”    Martha Helena Lopez, the Secretary-General’s senior advisor on human resources, has become emblematic of this “don’t care” policy. Observers note she looks fatigued, more focused on retirement than on strengthening governance. Rather than engaging with tribunal rulings, she and her team have defaulted to what staff now mockingly call “phone-call directives,” issuing guidance over the phone without regard to established precedent or proper review.  In New York, staff have started referring to her and her legal colleagues as “phone-call officers and advisors” because of their casual approach to matters of grave consequence. Their advice to the Secretary-General effectively shields misconduct from judicial scrutiny, entrenches his culture of impunity.  Guterres, they say, should end censorship. Application was made on June 19, 2025. Watch this site. *** Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. 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