This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Amnesty International is to cut almost 100 jobs as part of urgent restructuring to tackle a “serious budget deficit”, the human rights organisation has confirmed.

Amnesty, labelled a “toxic” workplace in a February review, said in a statement that it expected to make 93 “painful and difficult” redundancies. Last week, it emerged that five members of the charity’s senior leadership team, all of whom offered their resignations following the damning review, will be made redundant by October.

In April, the Guardian reported scores of jobs would go after management admitted to a hole in its budget of up to £17m to the end of 2020.

Unite, the UK’s biggest trade union, said the redundancies were a direct result of “overspending by the organisation’s senior leadership team” and have occurred “despite an increase in income”.

Alan Scott, Unite’s regional co-ordinating officer, said Amnesty’s union members will meet this week to decide how to respond to the “devastating announcement”.

“All options are firmly on the table,” said Scott, who accused the organisation’s senior management of a “dangerous habit of irresponsible overspending and over-scoping, leaving staff to suffer the costs, first with their wellbeing and now with their jobs”.

He said: “The problems of wellbeing and the financial crisis are symptoms of a leadership that continuously made decisions that it could not afford, in terms of budget, workload and responsibility of care.”

The cuts, which will be finalised in September, come during a change of direction at the organisation that has led some staff to express concern that in-depth research on key issues such as the death penalty, torture and the arms trade could be compromised.

Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty’s recently appointed secretary general and a former head of Greenpeace International, will make the climate crisis and economic rights a central focus of the organisation’s work.

One insider told the Guardian of concerns that vital areas of Amnesty’s work such as research, law and policy may be disproportionately affected by the cuts.

“Amnesty is known for its good and credible and focused research,” the source said. “The focus on campaigning rather than research and law and policy, to make sure the research is sound, is worrisome.”

The crisis at Amnesty became public last year when Gaetan Mootoo, 65, a researcher of three decades, killed himself at his Paris office, leaving a note blaming work pressures and a lack of support from management. A review found his pleas for help had been ignored.

A few weeks later, in July last year, Rosalind McGregor, 28, an intern in Geneva, killed herself at her home in the UK.

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An independent review into workplace culture following the deaths found the charity operating in a “state of emergency” after a restructuring process to decentralise and move staff closer to the ground in places of civil unrest and conflict. The review was based on interviews with 475 staff.

The organisation said in a statement: “Amnesty International is facing a serious budget deficit which must be urgently addressed. Even though membership of Amnesty is increasing worldwide, funding for the international secretariat has reduced. Unfortunately, it will have to cut its expenditure, while at the same time ensuring future priorities. We can confirm that there will be up to 93 redundancies.

“This is a painful and difficult decision. We will now work closely with staff and the union over a formal three-month consultation period to look at the restructuring proposals. Every effort will be made to minimise job losses and we will do everything in our power to support impacted staff. The final decisions will be announced on 9 September 2019.”

The organisation remained “committed to the core work of campaigning and advocacy on evidence-based research into human rights issues”, it said.