Amid Vibration of UN Building, Emergency Exits Were Blocked, Staff Kept Working

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, February 19 – How seriously does the UN take the safety of its staff, for example those working in the rented Albano Building half a block from the UN compound in Manhattan? Not very.

UN staff tell Inner City Press that on Friday, February 15 vibrations from the demolition of a building next to the Albano were so bad that they were told that the emergency stairs on that side would not be used for any purpose -- including an emergency.

  Anywhere else in New York, this would mean sending the workers home, vacating the building. The law requires a secondary means of egress in case of fire or other emergency.

  But UN staff were made to keep working on the building on Friday. And even after the three day weekend, on Tuesday February 19, they were told that that stairway should only be used in case of a “serious emergency.” 

  The vibrations, staff tell Inner City Press, also exclusively, continue. And it does not appear that the UN informed the New York City Buildings Department.

  The claim the UN makes is that its premises, including the floors it rented not only in Albano but also the so-called Innovation  Luggage Building on Second Avenue and 42Street, for example, are international territory not subject to New York City or US laws. But what about safety?

  And what about the UN preaching about workers rights and conditions of labor all over the world?

  In one of a number of other recent stories about UN staff and safety, Inner City Press in writing about a slip and fall in the UN cafeteria with shorter and shorter hours wrote about the lack of X-Ray facilities in the UN after Hurricane Sandy. The UN wrote back to Inner City Press:

Subject: Your question on X rays
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 3:31 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

We can confirm that the UN's x-ray machine was seriously damaged in Hurricane Sandy. It will not be replaced.

Like all medical services around the World, the UN Medical Services Division has been progressively seeking to reduce the use of x-rays in situations where the medical literature indicates there is no requirement for them. This will also minimise the exposure of staff to ionizing radiation associated with x-ray imaging. X-ray use has now reduced so much that there is no longer a need for a full-time x-ray service in the UN building. The small number of x-rays that are still needed are now sourced from external providers.

   But nevertheless when a woman slipped on a negligently wet floor, she was taken to UN Medical Service - without any X-Ray. Watch this site.

Exclusive: UN's Post-Sandy Review Admits Snafus, Urges Plan to Relocate to Another UNHQ

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, February 6 – The effects on the UN of Hurricane Sandy, even after more than three months, continue to be felt. And now a copy of the UN's “After Action Review - Storm Sandy” has surfaced,or leaked, and Inner City Press is exclusively publishing it here.

  There are many understatements, for example that “communications to Member States, staff and to the wider public during the immediate period following the storm were unsatisfactory.”

  Member states led by Algeria, then the head of the Group of 77, lambasted Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his team for failing to send them a single e-mail during the storm.

  The Review recounts that the UN didn't even have current contact information for its own member states: “On Monday 29 October at 11:35am, a broadcast message was sent out, advising Member States and all staff of the need to relocate all vehicles to the 2B Garage level as a preventative measure. It was later discerned that the mailing list used to contact Member States did not contain the latest accurate contacts for all Member State Missions to the UN.”

  In one of most interesting recommendations, the Review suggests that the UN beginning planning to work out of a headquarters other than in New York City:

“events could affect the UN Secretariat campus in NY, requiring closing for a much longer period because of severe damage to UN facilities, infrastructure (including disruptions to New York City’s core infrastructure (i.e. public transportation; electricity; wireless communications, etc.)... Recommendation: SEPT should take up the issue of contingency planning for major events, ones that could realistically require relocation of UN functions to another UN headquarters.”

  The Review does not say where this might be, or how it might impact UN staff. Some of the staff most impacted are in Publishing, “affecting approximately 300 staff and included three leased digital printers which produce 95-99% of all the official documentation requirements.”

  Now machines are running even after-hours on the North Lawn Building's second floor. Many functions in the third sub-basement 3B are still suspended, as in the less known 4B and 5B.

  As Inner City Press reported earlier today, after a fellow member of the Free UN Coalition for Access was injured and put into a UN wheelchair, the UN Medical Service still has no X-Ray capability. So who will be accountable? Watch this site.

At UN, Council Moves But Medical Files and Union Left Behind by Master Plan

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/cmp1march032910.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- While the UN Capital Master Plan lurches forward, some are left behind. On fifth floor of the Secretariat building last week, the hallway was full of rolling carts of medical files.

Weeks ago, the UN Medical Service, embroiled in a scandal of doctors without U.S. licensed signing out controlled substances to themselves, moved out to Second Avenue and 42nd Street, "above the liquor store," as it's known.

But the contractor had made the shelves for medical records too small. So so the records stayed in an office empty but for the X-ray unit. This apparently can't be moved "above the liquor store." It will be buried in the UN's third sub-basement.

Also on the fifth floor, the UN Staff Union hasn't even been told where they will finally move to. They were offered a minuscule space in the Alcoa Building on 48th Street; this offer may have been withdrawn.

This despite a blustery ultimatum from the Capital Master Plan, that if journalists don't relinquish their offices on the fourth floor by March 31, their files will be thrown out. If the Staff Union one floor above is any indication, the April 1 deadline is false. We shall see.

In terms of the forced move of UN correspondents to cubicles that initially came equipped with security cameras above them monitored by the UN -- the "no whistleblower zone," Inner City Press dubbed it -- now the UN wants to begin charging even for an inside-the-UN phone.

Since these allow correspondents to call and cover the UN's work in the field, from Congo to Timor Leste, one wonders if it's smart. But this UN must know what it's doing, monitoring and making things more difficult for independent journalists.

The Secretariat, Staff Union officials complain, has been trying to divide and conquer. While two officials have been released from day to day UN work to perform Union functions, the second vice president remains employed in the forestry unit of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. She wants and applies for promotions, setting up a conflict of interest in her Union work.

Records indicate that she came into UN service "through the back door," seconded by Brazil and then somehow "regularized." She has accused Union president Steven Kisambira of being an emperor; he has responded by putting on a emperor-like hat. And so it goes at the UN.

Footnote: to give credit where credit is due, for the move of the Security Council down to the old Conference Room 4 in the General Assembly building basement, work went on over the weekend. By Monday morning, if for example the Council wanted to meet about the subway bombings in Moscow, they could.

A visit Monday morning by Inner City Press found that the flags were set up where the Vienna Cafe used to be. The consultations room was in old Conference Room 5. And the horseshoe table was in place, raised the mezzanine cheap seats, with a replica painting behind.

"We busted a nut," a CMP official said. Why not for those left behind in the Secretariat? And how is the Council going to act when the UN's Security Council Affairs has been relegated out to Third Avenue in the so called Teachers Building of TIAA-CREF? There appears to be dissension in that office. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/cmp1march032910.html