UNITED NATIONS – VIENNA
CHILD CARE AND CAREER: THE DIFFICULT BALANCING ACT
Most staff members have to face it at one point or another. The birth
of a child requires them to make difficult decision regarding their career.
Mostly this is true for mothers but more and more also for fathers.
The UN provides for maternity leave and paternity
leave but they help up to
a point and do not always permit to take
proper care of the child in the early years
while keeping the job. Special leave without
pay helps but it is not always an option and
it has its limitations.
Staff faced with the difficult decision return to
work after they have exhausted all the options,
need to find a solution for the proper
care of their child. What is available in the locality
varies from country to country.
In Austria, the social welfare system allows
parents who are locally employed to take up
to two years of leave with a minimum pay
while keeping their job.
Because of these policies, local authorities focus
the provision of child care services mostly
from two years and above because in most
cases one of the parents will stay at home
with the child at least until he/she is two
years old. Thus, the number of child care
places for children below two years is limited
and UN staff working in Vienna have considerable
difficulties in finding child care facilities
for children below two years when
they need to return to work after sixteen
weeks or even after an extended period of
special leave without pay.
The staff union and associations and the management of the UN organizations based in Vienna (UNOV/UNODC, IAEA, UNIDO and later on CTBTO), aware of this problem presented their concerns to the Municipality of Vienna. The Municipality agreed in 1986 to establish and staff a child care facility within the premises. Initially, the child care centre, which was hosted in a small prefab house placed between the towers of the UN in Vienna, had limited capacity (only 30 places). Demand was clearly higher than the offer. In 2000 it was agreed to build a proper structure to increase the capacity of the service.
A new child care centre, which was designed pro bono by Ali Reza Gahemi an architect working with UNIDO, was built with a mix of funding. Part of the money came from a special fund of the Municipality of Vienna and part from the staff welfare funds of the various organizations originating from small levies applied to the sales of the commissary. The new child care centre was inaugurated on 30 August 2001. At the inauguration of the centre, speaking on behalf of the Staff Unions and Associations of the VIC, Walter Scherzer, President of the Staff Association of the IAEA, said “A miracle has come true. The result is a spanking new child care facility completely in keeping with the VIC buildings surrounding it – and undoubtedly one of the finest nursery schools in Vienna and possibly within the UN system”. Walter Scherzer had all the reason to be proud having been one of the driving forces behind the project.
The Vienna International Centre (VIC) Child
Care Centre caters for children between the
ages of 3 months and 6 years. There are 148
places available and they are distributed
among the four Agencies of the VIC. Places
are allocated according to a set of eligibility
and priority criteria (income, contractual status,
length of service, marital status, etc.), although
hardship cases are reviewed on an individual
basis.
The Centre is managed by the Municipality of
Vienna on the same lines as other municipal
Kindergartens, including fees, teaching and
administrative arrangements. The language
of the Child Care Centre is German, although some of the staff of the centre are able to
communicate in English with the parents.
The Centre follows the pedagogical approach
that is used by the “Kindergarten” of the Municipality
and follows many of the Montessori
methods that embraces the maxim: “help me
do it myself!”. The focus is on learning the
skills that will ease a child towards greater independence.
The Child Care Centre is open from 07:30 -
18:00. It is closed on all Austrian and UN
holidays. It is open during the summer but
parents are asked to take the children out for
four weeks between June and August.
There is an Advisory Committee consisting of
representatives of the management of the
Child Care Centre, the Administrations and
Staff Unions of the participating organizations
that provide the necessary oversight
and advise on the management of the Centre.
In 2006, a satisfaction survey was carried out
and 80 per cent of the parents stated that they
were satisfied with the service. There were
some concerns on the speaking language of
the Centre (German) because some parents
were not comfortable in speaking German
and that the staff of the Centre was not always
fluent in English. Demand is still high
and there is a waiting list although there are
some alternative options available especially
for children from 3 to 6 years.
Although the UN staff in Vienna are in a
favourable situation because of the local policy
and the willingness of the local authority
to support their needs, it is also important to
note that staff unions and association worked
together with management to bring the case
to the host country and to find creative solutions
to face the costs of the construction of
the facility.
Although, it may be difficult to find similar
conditions in other duty stations the lesson
learned from Vienna is to work together with
management and look for local opportunities
to be exploited. Our experience is that staff
are ready to pay higher costs than those offered
by local services if they can have child
care facilities inside the premises with opening
hours and conditions that take into consideration
their needs.
The organizations of the United Nations are
promoting worldwide the standards of social
welfare, care and education and it is good if
we, as staff no matter whether we are management
or staff representatives, would be
able to show that we are trying to apply the
same standards that we are promoting inside
of our organizations. There has been considerable
progress in the last years in many
areas (breast feeding, paternity leave, recognition
of domestic partnership, telecommuting,
etc.) sometimes the conditions are there
and all it takes is to build partnerships to
make something come true.
