Statement by the President of the U.N. Staff Union
Ms. Rosemarie Waters, endorsed by CCISUA Bureau, to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, UN Headquarters, New York, 16 March 2006
Distinguished members of the Advisory Committee, The proposal presented by the Secretary-General in A/60/692 as a Management Reform proposal is neither a blueprint to enhance management, nor the proposal requested by the Member States – to make more efficient use of the UN’s financial and human resources. While the document contains several proposals that could be supported by the UN Staff Union, it does not address the fundamental causes for the lack of adequate management in the United Nations. The major concerns of the UN Staff Union can be covered under several major headings:
Expanded managerial authority without
accountability
Currently, in the public and private sectors,
great value is placed on ethical behaviour and
accountability. The most advanced, modern
personnel management system in the world
requires oversight and monitoring to deter
abuse of authority.
Despite repeated assurances by the Secretary-General, and numerous requests in General
Assembly resolutions, the Secretary-General
has still not presented a solid plan to
enforce personal accountability with clear
measures to address managerial failures.
Further, the current report insults the staff
by identifying specific failed systems without
any indication of how those responsible
will be held accountable. The biggest examples
of these are the multi-million dollar
IMIS and Galaxy systems which are now
proposed for replacement.
What modern management system gives
expanded authority to individuals without accountability?
Yet, the Secretary-General requests
expanded authority to allow managers to:
- move staff members wherever managers believe they are needed;
- reclassify a specific percentage of posts within a specific budget period;
- move posts from one area to another;
- use the savings from vacated posts for other activities they deem important.
- provide information in a manner the Secretariat deems appropriate to Member States;
- choose the staff members who will be included in the buy-out programme;
- shift formal authority for management and operational functions to the Deputy Secretary-General, in violation of the UN Charter; and,
- perform these actions without reference to or approval of Member States.
It must be noted that all of these requests
are made in the same report where the Secretary-General states his lack of satisfaction
with the skill of UN managers and notes that
many managers have lost the ability to manage.
Against such a backdrop, it is not reasonable
to propose expanded authority for managers.
Staff were promised a new culture by
the Secretary-General and yet the culture of
privilege continues and requests are now
made to expand that privilege.
A number of the actions above affect the
working conditions of staff. Therefore,
according to the Staff Regulations and Rules,
there should be full consultation with the
staff representatives.
Lack of consultation with staff
representatives
The Secretary-General has openly admitted
during his town hall meeting on the 7th of
March 2006 that there were no consultations
with staff representatives. He used the same
term at the town hall meeting that he used
when made this admission at a meeting with
the UN Staff Committee on the 22nd of February.
He called the failure to consult ‘regrettable’.
Failure to consult the staff representative
bodies on actions that affect staff welfare is
not merely regrettable, it is a clear violation
of the Staff Regulations and Rules, which
each of us committed ourselves to uphold at
the time of recruitment.
This is the current Secretary-General’s
fourth major reform. And, after the introduction
of each reform, staff representatives
requested him to respect the Staff Regulations
and Rules by engaging in consultation.
The Member States have also asked that staff
representatives be included in the consultative
process. Yet, the staff unions continue to
be faced with situations where proposals are
developed without them and they are told
that they still have a role to play during implementation.
It is vital for staff representatives
to engage in meaningful consultation from
the formulation of proposals through their
implementation to allow the experience and
wealth of knowledge within the staff representative
bodies to be utilized in the manner
envisaged in the Staff Regulations and Rules.
Aside from violating the Staff Regulations
and Rules, lack of consultation during a
major reform violates all modern principles
of integrating stakeholders into the process
to achieve sustainable change.
Staff representatives have proven their readiness
to change and to assist in the process of making
the Organization more effective by presenting
numerous proposals on performance appraisal,
internal justice, accountability measures, staff
selection system, and even the consultative
process itself. These proposals have found little
acceptance by the senior management of the
United Nations. In fact, many of the proposals
made by staff representatives as long ago as 15
years are now being presented by the Secretary-General as progressive, new proposals.
However, the staff representatives will not
stand by silently while yet another reform,
improperly conceived from the beginning,
frustrates the staff and ends up being abandoned
without full implementation.
We appeal to the distinguished members
of ACABQ, as we will to the distinguished
representatives of the Fifth Committee, to
ensure that when drafting documents a
clear distinction is made between consultation
with staff and staff representatives.
The UN management is using town hall
meetings with staff-at-large as a replace-ment for the formal consultative process in
the Staff Regulations and Rules. They are
also consulting with staff in senior managerial
positions and portraying those comments
as coming from the working level
staff.
This type of consultation may have a dramatic
effect on the quality of the comments.
You can imagine that if citizens on the streets
of any country were asked their views on
political issues, those views might differ
sharply from members of government who
have a wider knowledge and broader understanding
of the needs of the country. It is the
same with staff representatives. A collective
review is required, not only individual views,
on matters as complex as reform of the
Organization.
The administration has made it clear that
they cannot be relied upon to respect the
rules and regulations of this Organization. It
is even more clear that the importance of
staff representation must be institutionalized
for any reform to have measures of success
since it is critical to the delivery of high performance.
Therefore, the Staff Union strongly
requests that the Advisory Committee consider
recommending the establishment of a
clear structure for meaningful staff-management
consultation for all staff unions and
associations and administrations throughout
the Common System.
Redesign of the Internal System of Justice
An independent panel of experts has been
established by the General Assembly to conduct
a thorough review of the UN’s internal
justice system. That panel is in the midst of
its work. It should be noted that changes in
personnel policy at this time may have an
implication for the work of that panel, since
they will also be reviewing the adequacy of
the rules and regulations. Attempts to make
broad changes in the rules and regulations at
this time may pre-empt proposals by the
Redesign panel.
Outsourcing/ Off shoring
Outsourcing/off shoring is presented as
something that needs to be “studied”. The
Staff Union does not believe that the guidelines
and restrictions placed on outsourcing
by the General Assembly need to be lifted or
revised. Simply put, they protect the international
character of the Organization which
means “the policies and administrative methods
of the Secretariat should reflect and profit
to the highest degree from assets of the various
cultures and the technical competence of
all Member nations” (A/59/724, para. 6).
The General Assembly did not give any
mandate to the Secretary-General to expand
or introduce such operating modes as relocation,
outsourcing, telecommuting etc. and it
certainly never requested him to take away “benefits currently flowing to the richest
Member State…in order to benefit more
countries and economies” (para. 59 of
A/60/692), because this would have given the
Conference Services of the UN an unprecedented
political and economic function of
spreading wealth among countries. The 2005
Outcome Document directs him to increase
efficiency of operations, and there are many
ways of achieving this goal without the risk
of serious disruption of Conference Services,
which is highly probable due to a vast combination
of technological and human factors.
It should be noted here that the Under
Secretary-General for Management has
already informed the staff representatives
that translators and the publishing
service are taking up valuable space in
the UN Headquarters complex. He is not
sure that the prime rental space on
1st Avenue and 42nd Street is being properly utilized. Staff representatives
were under the impression that we
are discharging the mandates of the
Organization, not reviewing NYC
rental space costs. While cost-effectiveness
is definitely important in
certain discussions, it should be
noted that the Plenary on Secretariat
and Management Reform outlined
the guiding principles of the
informal process which was
decided at its first informal meeting
on 6 December 2005. Those guiding
principles included the following:
— That management reform is not the agenda
of any single Government or group of
Governments. All Member States have a stake
in its success;
— That the process must be owned and
driven by Member States. The UN Secretariat
will support the process with information,
briefings, and documentation as
required, but all political and policy decisions
relating to management reform will
be taken by Member States;
— That management reform is not a cost-cutting
exercise, but rather a review that takes into
account the political and intergovernmental
nature of the United Nations, its purpose and proceedings.
Above all, that the United Nations is not
a commercial corporation.
— That throughout the process, the role and
responsibilities of the Advisory Committee on
Administrative and Budgetary Questions, and
that of the Fifth Committee, will be fully
respected.
It is, therefore, obvious that the guidelines
set forth by the Member States have
not been respected. It should also be
noted here that in his report to the 59th
Session of the General Assembly on Outsourcing
Practices (A/59/227, para. 4), the
Secretary-General reiterated “his commitment
to ensuring that programme managers
are guided by the four basic criteria and three
significant goals called for in the General
Assembly resolution 55/232 and the need for
programme managers to satisfy the criteria
when considering whether or not to outsource
an activity of the Organization.
The Staff Union would also add that in their
report on the integration of global management
of conference services (A/59/133, introduction
and para. 8), the Office of Internal Oversight
Services identified inconsistent management
practices across all four duty stations, lack of
coordination, technology capability, database
accessibility, and a variety of other conditions
that would make it impossible for a fair and
appropriate analysis and comparison to be
made in relation to outsourcing.
Multilingualism
The outsourcing/off shoring of part of the
documentation chain would have a serious
and detrimental effect on multilingualism,
one of the cornerstones of our Organization.
The seductive logic of monetary savings
would dismantle the translation services
and eventually give pre-eminence to
English, the language in which most
of our documents are drafted.
Role of the Member States and
Advisory Bodies
The Under-Secretary-General for
Management tells the staff that we
work for the citizens of the world. Who
actually represents the citizens of the
world? Surely the Member States — not
individuals appointed to posts in the
Secretariat by the Secretary-General.
Staff representatives consider the
role of the advisory bodies extremely critical
to provide the review and oversight
that is necessary before the Secretariat
outlays large amounts of money for activities
and programmes. If those activities
and programmes are for the citizens of the
world, then those who represent those citizens
must be given every opportunity to
review and make informed decisions on
proposals.
For that reason, it is essential that advisory
bodies, such as the ACABQ, ensure that their
role is strengthened and respected as one of
the few independent and impartial groups
who can honestly review proposals without
specific loyalties and constituencies.
Crisis of confidence
The failure to address the basic principles
above has overshadowed the good proposals in
the management reform report and caused a crisis
of confidence in the Secretary-General and his
senior management team.
Staff representatives of the UN Staff Union met
with the Secretary-General on 22 February 2006
and he clearly stated that there would be no
strategic decision on outsourcing/off shoring in
the report. Yet, the report contains specific
requests and a timetable for implementation of
cost benefit analyses.
Staff representatives of the global federation,
CCISUA, were assured by the Deputy Secretary-General on 15 February 2006 that the Secretary-General’s document was a “vision” document and
did not contain substantive proposals. The document
contains many substantive proposals including
financial implications.
Distinguished members of the
Advisory Committee,
The issues we are discussing will have a
decisive effect on the future of many staff in
the United Nations. It was, therefore, important
to the UN Staff Union that you be given
an accurate picture of the most serious concerns of the staff representatives. We have
other concerns, for example, the attempt to
change the very nature of international civil
service, the future of jobs, the exclusion of
general service and related categories of staff
from this reform, and the fact that the current
document presented by the Secretary-General repeats a number of proposals that
were included in the 2002 reform document:
Strengthening of the United Nations: an
agenda for further change (A/57/387) however,
four years later, they are still not implemented.
Many of these additional concerns are contained
in a series of publications by the UN Staff
Union called “Reformwatch”. These documents
have been presented to you and we hope you will
review them as part of this presentation.
On behalf of the United Nations Staff Union,
I wish to thank you for the opportunity to present
our views today and I am prepared to answer your
questions and engage in further discussions on
these matters.
Thank you.
© 2006 UN Special |