The management of World Vision in
Malawi has agreed to put on hold contract changes among its staff in an effort
to end a strike that, if prolonged, could have significant impact on the
organization’s operations in the African country.
 |
| World Vision staff members help distribute water for people displaced |
Both parties arrived at that
arrangement last week after three days of protests over salary increases and
other payments. The aid group has opted to follow its new policy — a
growing trend among implementing partners — of transitioning to fixed-term
contracts for staff members in response to changing donor grant cycles, but
lack of funding for this purpose has posed serious challenges to implementing
the changes.
“There are payments that are supposed
to be affected if one is leaving open to fixed-term contracts,” acting country
director Paulaw Kitheka told Devex. “But being a donor-funded organization, we
do not raise such amount of money for these particular costs, yet it is in our
guidelines to pay when somebody is making that switch in contract. So because
we do not hold any money, we do not make any profit — and that has been
clarified and communicated to staff — we have opted to stay in the status quo.”
World Vision Malawi announced it will
seek a “more acceptable legal option” through consultations with its its
regional office for Southern Africa. As for the salary adjustments, both sides
agreed to a 20-50 hike, although still based on labor costs and performance.
“We did recognize as management that
indeed there’s an economic challenge in the business environment, work
environment, following the devaluation of the [Malawian] kwacha, but that did
not necessarily imply we should walk out of our core philosophy, and our
calling to this ministry,” said Kitheka, adding they have also agreed to look
at possible savings that could be shared or “plowed back” to staff benefits in
the form of “temporary cushion allowance” that is set to start in April.
He clarified however: “We’re not
committing ourselves to anything because it’s subject to currency fluctuation.”
While it did not affect essential
relief operations, the strike was “unfortunate” and “regrettable,” according to
Kitheka, who said it did bring out lessons for management and staff.
“We used to get more long-term
funding. [But] our funding is becoming a lot short cycle, and there are legal
obligations if you kept people on long, indefinite contracts, and you have
short funding cycles. Our donors are beginning to grow more in grants, which
are time-bound. Therefore it was our thinking - and still is - that it is good
to align our contracts to the length of funding, to avoid possible legal
challenges when staff are transitioning,” he explained.
The case of World Vision in Malawi is
not isolated.
Also last week, staff members of the U.N. Relief and Works
Agency in the West Bank ended a two-month strike over salary disputes and
newly-introduced employment policies. Deficits in the U.N. agency’s annual
budget have made it impossible to submit to the demands of its employees on
across-the-board salary increases, but it has promised a month ago to explore options
for those with time-bound contracts under its emergency job creation project.
The agreement on Thursday, however,
does not specify the terms reached by both parties, while UNRWA has yet to
respond to a request from Devex for more specifics on the deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment