Youth at the ILO: an unsecure journey (written in June 2024)

At the bottom of this article, you will find the translation into the other working languages of the ILO.

For the past nine months, I’ve been working at the ILO, first as an intern and then on an SST. As my time here draws to a close in a few days, I want to share some thoughts on a topic that is pervasive in young staff’s lives: our contractual situation. It fuels our discussions and shapes our worries and hopes. 

I’m not telling you anything new: starting a career at the ILO often means navigating very short-term contracts. As young professionals, our mission is to survive in this uncertain environment. For some of us, our visas in Switzerland are tied to our work contracts, which means that losing our job at the ILO often forces us to leave the country on short notice. This situation is incredibly stressful for many. It makes it impossible to plan our personal lives, as everything hinges on the duration of our contracts.

To secure a new contract, we are told to network, starting from our very first day. I’ve often heard the phrase, “Here, no one will take care of you; you have to create your own path to stay.” During our Intern Development Day, a senior colleague advised us to dedicate 20% of our work time to our professional future. One day a week wasted. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming these colleagues for giving us this advice, even less the youth for applying them; they are merely the messengers and the powerless actors of the system.

This system wastes everyone’s time and resource. Moreover, once again, we see the neoliberal logic, a logic that stresses the individuality rather the collective: the most effective organisation would be the one wherein each individual is in competition to secure better positions, workers are never more efficient than when their direct interests hang in the balance. Therefore, everyone is invited to view themselves as individual enterprises with their own management objectives. Against this idea, I believe that ILO is stronger when its staff is unified behind the house’s mandate, working together with the same objective. I believe that another management system is possible; a system wherein we are told to be fully dedicated to the house’s mandate rather than to our personal career path. Limiting short-term contracts and providing security to workers is not an unreasonable objective; it is a choice.

The Office has over time accepted this insecurity for youth staff. If it has done this because some in the office partly endorse this ideology, I can ensure that, we, youth at the ILO, are here because we believe (maybe naively) that the organisation is still in capacity to change workers’ lives. We are here because we believe that labour markets need more fairness, we believe that all workers should be able to make a decent living out of their labour. We are here because we were horrified by the Rana Plaza collapse, and this will mark our commitment throughout our career. We are here because we believe the ILO’s agenda can help to make a difference, and we want to be committed to it, not worried about our next contract. Let us focus on social justice.

Version française (deepl): ici

Spanish version (deepl) : aquì