ILO proposes dismissing 120 staff to offset part of the United States’ debt to the organization
The United Nations agency’s director‑general asks the governing body for authorization to make the staff cuts, which unions oppose
The International Labour Organization (ILO) Office, led by Director‑General Gilbert F. Houngbo, has informed its governing body that “it will be necessary to save $22 million” amid a severe liquidity crisis at the agency. To achieve this cost reduction, Houngbo is proposing that 120 jobs be cut. Of those, 73 are permanent civil‑service posts, slimming down a structure that currently comprises 1,670 staff. With these cuts, the organization’s current leadership aims to alleviate the cash flow crisis facing the ILO, to which the United States owes some 257 million Swiss francs (approximately $300 million) in unpaid dues. The U.S. arrears account for 70% of all outstanding dues owed by member states to the organization.
As 61% of the workers for whom dismissal is being sought hold permanent positions (under the organization’s nomenclature), Houngbo has asked the governing body to approve the staff reduction, in line with a requirement of the ILO statutes. That request is recorded in the report that will be discussed as the first item on the agenda of the governing body’s extraordinary meeting on September 7 in Geneva, a document seen by EL PAÍS. At that meeting, the governing body must examine the request, which was formally filed on August 17, and decide whether to authorize the elimination of the structural posts.
In this way, the ILO’s current director‑general — who will stand for re‑election in November against Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s second deputy prime minister and labor minister — asks the governing body to “take note of the information on the ILO’s financial situation and of the amount of savings required.” The report puts those cutbacks at $22 million, “equivalent to the reduction of around 120 full‑time posts,” in addition to maintaining a hiring freeze through December 2027. Houngbo is therefore seeking approval to eliminate 73 permanent positions, in addition to another 50 or so non-structural jobs for which the director-general does not need express authorization to terminate.
However, the report itself notes that the ILO Staff Union has rejected the notion that the governing body has the legal competence on its own to adopt a reduction in the number of permanent posts. Worker representatives insist that to carry out a measure of that magnitude an express delegation of authority to the governing body would be required; the body is composed of 56 representatives (28 from member states, 14 from workers’ organizations and 14 from employers’ organizations). And that step could only be taken at the International Labour Conference, the ILO’s supreme governing body, where all members of the organization are represented.
According to worker representatives, the legal limitation lies in the fact that Houngbo cannot terminate the contract of a permanent staff member (appointed without a time limit) unless there is first an approved reduction in the number of established posts by the governing organs. That is why the director‑general, through his office’s report, is asking the governing body to make the formal decision to reduce those posts. He argues that, once that step is taken, the director‑general would only have to carry out the subsequent dismissals.
The report prepared by Houngbo’s team states that “although a decision by the Conference would provide the strongest institutional basis, the Office considers that the Governing Body has the authority to decide on a reduction in the number of posts as part of the contingency measures framework for the 2026–2027 biennium.”
The decision to carry out this staff adjustment amid the organization’s financial crisis, mainly due to the United States’ repeated nonpayment, comes after Houngbo’s team said it had maintained an offer for an executive from the orbit of the Donald Trump administration to occupy the ILO’s top executive post. As a condition, it added, the United States must catch up on its contributions, according to the minutes of a recent diplomatic meeting between European representatives and United Nations agency officials, which EL PAÍS has seen. Houngbo’s circle also conveyed that, as the proposed staffing cuts now demonstrate, the director‑general’s plans include operating with a tighter budget if the United States continues to fail to provide the funding it owes.
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