Mr. Chairman, Pension
Board members and observers,
I would like to thank
you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of more than 60,000 active
participants of the Fund, who are represented by the Coordinating Committee of
International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA). Included in those 60,000
are the staff of the Pension Fund working in New York and Geneva as well as
staff representatives of the Fund in New York who have in the course of their
daily work, been cooperating with OIOS audits on various issues including Human
Resources issues, and have raised concerns with management’s proposed changes
to rules and policies on fraud reporting, and financial management.
Taking into account the number of
constituents I represent, it seems quite inappropriate, the heated
discussion in the Board about CCISUA's right to replace its observer when
needed. Such replacements have been made in
the past, and given the argumentation presented by the Fund secretariat, that
the nominated observer could be the CCISUA president, but not the CCISUA
adviser who happens to be a staff representative of the Fund in New
York, it may be construed that this could just be
a retaliation exercise taking place under the cover of those
formal considerations.
The 60,000 active participants
I represent remain deeply concerned about the dire relations between the Fund’s
staff and their management, which have plunged staff morale at the Fund to an
all time low and led staff to view their management with distrust, which in
turn affects the service of the Pension Fund’s clients.
At the end of March
this year, staff representatives shared with the appropriate bodies, including
Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), allegations related to probable
breaches by the Fund’s management of the United Nations rules concerning
contract and human resources management. It was not easy, but the staff rules of
the United Nations require every staff member to report alleged wrongdoing. As
you know by now, OIOS has finally opened an investigation, which is unfortunately
not finished yet, and in fact staff representatives have not been approached by
OIOS investigators.
In this context, the
intentions behind the desire of the Fund’s management to change the rules which
are allegedly not fully respected merit to be clarified. We would like to
reiterate that our Federation does not understand why the framework of United
Nations regulations and rules has to be changed now, at the moment when Fund’s
capitalization is at all time high, - a fact which is obviously related with
the implementation of the above-mentioned regulations and rules for the past
six decades.
As demonstrated
during the town hall meeting which Chef de Cabinet held on this issue in the
beginning of April, this concern was shared not by CCISUA membership only, but
also by all the staff unions and associations represented in the
Staff-Management Committee.
In this context, we
would like to remind you of the article 7 b) of the Rules and Regulations of
the Fund which specifies that Pension Fund staff are appointed by the
Secretary-General and therefore hold United Nations Secretariat contracts. We
believe that it makes sense to preserve the human resources framework which has
proven its value over decades, instead of changing it. The draft Memorandum of
Understanding between the Fund and OHRM which was received by only two of three
Pension Fund staff representatives, was returned to management for
clarification as to whether the draft was in fact agreed to by all executive heads.
It was subsequently determined that it had not been agreed possibly due to certain
provisions abolishing many important elements of the human resources framework,
including the right of the CEO to modify administrative instructions
(regulating in the United Nations, inter alia, staff selection and gifts policy).
I must stress the
unacceptable way of conducting, or rather preventing the staff-management
consultations by the Fund’s management. The above-mentioned draft declared to
be submitted for consultations, had been marked confidential, which prevented
the gathering of views of the staff and their genuine representation. We
believe that this disrespect of the requirements of transparency must cease and
appeal to the Board in order to make sure that the management is held
accountable for this flagrant disrespect of its duties under the Chapter VIII
of the Staff Rules and Regulations of the United Nations, dealing with
staff-management consultations on the issues of conditions of service and staff
welfare.
As the inappropriate and
sometimes factually incorrect statement made at this very session under the human
resources agenda item demonstrated, the unacceptable habit of
“union-busting” still persists among the Fund management. I must note, however,
that no document in this sense had been submitted to the Board before the
session. We are grateful for the fact that union arguments concerning
transparency have been heard by some representatives of the executive heads, as
it can be seen from the annex to the R.24 document. In this context, I would
like to stress again that retaliation against staff, and staff representative
sin particular, is prohibited at the United Nations and would like to be able
to count on your strong support in this.
Last year, I
attracted your attention to a conflict of interest concerning a Pension Board
member who had performed a consultant’s job for the Fund and I urge you to take
a resolute policy action in order to avoid this situation to happen in the
future.
Concerning budget,
the most important item on the Board’s agenda this year, I would like to convey
two important concerns. The first is related to delays in disbursements for new
retirees, many for more than six months, and individual cases as far delays as
two years. The second is linked with the non-filling of vacancies in the Fund
and apparent mismanagement of temporary job openings, most recently with the
appointment of a temporary D-1 transition manager and dismantling of the
Executive Office which will cause further delays in recruitment and is already
causing a reduction in the quality to service of staff.
In this context, I
would underline the need to give the Fund the necessary means to fulfil its
mandate, but in the same time the need to hold the management accountable for
the use of them, and therefore, to introduce the pertinent performance
indicators. As the implementation of enterprise resource planning systems (IPAS
and Umoja) actually requires surge capacity, it is important that this
transition to ERPs does not undermine the client services of the Fund. In this
regard, the situation of the Executive Office in New York requires particular
attention.
Before concluding,
let me thank the staff of the Fund who blew the whistle and informed their
unions of what was going on. Without their brave actions, neither you nor we
would be any wiser about the serious management difficulties at the Fund.
Unfortunately, the Fund’s management is clearly attempting to persecute these
staff and announced its intention to take disciplinary action against them. I
therefore ask, in the interest of ethics and good governance, that you order a
stop to this.
Unfortunately, I have
to say today that these concerns, already expressed in my statement at the
previous, sixty-first session of the Board, are fully valid today.
On behalf of the
60,000 participants, for whom I speak today, I would like to reiterate my statement
made at that session and say that we are still seriously concerned about the
direction this Fund is taking. As the Board, we believe you have an important
role to play to bring the Fund’s management back in line, to ensure regulations
are upheld, oversight reinforced, violations stopped, honesty restored, labour
regulations respected and whistleblowers protected. You have a key role to
ensure that those who run the Fund and advise its leaders are worthy of this
role, that they inspire the confidence of its participants, of the General
Assembly, and of the member organizations. They must earn the trust and respect
of their own staff, and the leadership must improve to be worthy of such
respect.
We believe in the
United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund and hope that we can regain the trust
necessary to have good staff-management relations and see better days ahead for
staff and beneficiaries alike.
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