Pension matters: Petition signed by 3000 plus delivered to the Office of the Chef de Cabinet today! (21 July 2015)

Petition signed by 3000 plus delivered today, 21 July 2015, to Mr. Patrick Carey 
Director, Office of the Chef de Cabinet, Executive Office of the Secretary-General.
In the photo (L to R): Loraine Rickard-Martin, Patrick Carey, 

Anna Theofilopoulou, Curling Smith, Lowell Flanders

Cover letter below

POSTAL ADDRESS-ADRESSE POSTALE: UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. 10017

CABLE ADDRESS -ADRESSE TELEGRAPHIQUE:  UNATIONS NEWYORK

REFERENCE:

Excellency Ban Ki-moon

                                                 

21 July 2015

Excellency,

We have the honour to present to you a petition signed by more than 3000 participants and beneficiaries of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, requesting that you maintain in place the current system of checks and balances that has allowed the Fund to thrive over the past 65 years when many public pension funds have failed.

This petition follows a previous petition in May 2014 initiated by the United Nations Office in Geneva, which was signed by more than 13,000 Fund participants and beneficiaries.

Mr. Iutaka's Unilateral Initiative, by Lowell Flanders (21 July 2015)

Note: Curling Smith, Anna Theofilopoulou, and Loraine Rickard-Martin, members of the original resolution drafting group, endorse Lowell's views as expressed  (below).

RESPONSE TO MR. IUTAKA'S UNILATERAL INITIATIVE

It was with a considerable sense of dismay that some of us read Mr. Sugyiama Iutaka’s, letter of 20 July addressed to the members of the Pension Board (see below email from Julie Thompson and cover note and draft resolution by Mr. Iutaka).

Over several weeks in May and June, we had a small working group that collaborated on a draft resolution for possible presentation at an AFICS general meeting should we be able to convince the AFICS leadership to hold one. We garnered input from the group through email circulation, a meeting at the Staff Union office, followed by requests for further inputs.

There were numerous occasions during the drafting period when we exchanged views on principles guiding our efforts. A major point of confusion arose when Julie Thompson informed people that, “From the outset, the work being done by retirees has been in support of, and designed to strengthen,” the work of the Pension Fund Staff representatives. From the start, it was our understanding that the purpose of our informal working group was to influence AFICS to support and defend retiree interests, and to the extent that there are

UN Pension Fund: Wolves at the door? (18 July 2015)

(Cartoon by Matthew Chip Bhima Hogan)

Request to AFICS: please post our letters and the FICSA President's letter (18 July 2015)

18 July 2015

Letter to AFICS/NY President and Governing Board


Dear AFICS/NY President and Governing Board,


We, the undersigned AFICS members, are writing to request that you post soonest on the AFICS website letters addressed to you by Curling Smith, Lowell Flanders, and Loraine Rickard-Martin, dated 12 and 24 June 2015, and 7 July 2015,  in connection with your communications of 23 and 25 June, and 2 and 9 July 2015, posted on the website, concerning a request under the AFICS By-laws for a meeting to be convened on pension matters.


We are requesting this action in the interest of fairness, transparency, and accountability to AFICS members on this important issue. 


We also request for the same reasons that you post the letter of the FICSA President dated 29 June 2015, calling for no new MOU and strict limits on investments in hedge funds (attached).


Kindly post this present letter as well.  


Thank you in advance for your prompt action on this matter.


Sincerely,

Curling Smith, Lowell Flanders, Loraine Rickard-Martin, Anna Theofilopoulou, Mary Eliza Kimball, Sugiyama Iutaka, Julie Thompson, Somendu Banerjee, Lars Hyttinen, Lina Hamadeh, Ajit Banerjee, Joan Seymour, Judith Brister, Mercedes Hinton, Angelica Malic, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr,  Sarah L. Timpson,  Daniel Tuohy, Deolinda Leitao-Greene, Negla Chawky, Renee Richter,  Diane Barkley, Cheryl Larsen, Ozdinich Mustafa, Graciela Hall, Mampela Mpela, Ying-ying Tang, Roberta Brangam, Esther Gomez-Baumgarten, Maria D. Maldonado, Roger Guarda, Donald Heisel, Rosemary Noona, Donald Rogers, Lucine Tegnazian, Edna Osbourne,  Shahid Husain, Kristen Timothy Lankester, Aiden Ricardo Kinch, Josephine Hyttinen, Barbara Berllinghof, Carl Jordan, Puran C. Sharma, Michele Poliacof, Geoffrey Baldwin,  Lilia Vazquez, Cheryl Stoute, Michael Sarsar, Rosalba Butler, Bertrand Coppens, Leon Hosang, Joanna Piucci, Carolyn Uluc, Rosemarie Waters Pugh, Michael Smith, Nandasiri Jasentuliyana, Saleem Kassum, Siba Das, Nay Htun, Christopher Ronald, Elvira Ajero, Soknan Han Jung,  Dusan Dragic, Carol Joseph, Massimo D'Angelo, Nancy B. Lopez, Danielle Riviere, Yolette Chery, Mahadev Jalem, Salah Bourjini, Roy Morey, Joseph Van Arendonk, Zita Cistellini, Vivien Ponniah,  Nestor Marmanillo, Patricia Martung, Edward J. Freeman

Important message to AFICS members: Stay informed; send us your new email address soonest! (17 July 2015)

Two days ago (see post below: "AFICS to members: change your email address and hands off our members!") we reported about a sudden move by the AFICS leadership to request members to change their email addresses, ostensibly because some servers (aol, hotmail, and yahoo) reject messages from un.org. 

Several members have expressed surprise at this request from the AFICS office and have told us that they have experienced no such problem with their email address.  Some have said they've written to the AFICS President to ask the purpose of the request. 

Message from AFICS: Change your emails; and hands off our members! (15 July 2015)

The AFICS President hasn’t been the least bit shy about her displeasure concerning our use of the AFICS directory to connect with AFICS members about pension matters. You may recall that at our 17 June 2015 meeting she called it "dunning" (as in “making persistent demands of someone, especially for payment of debts”, see post “Gilding the lily” below). 

Now AFICS is suddenly asking its members to change their email addresses. Why now? Could it have anything to do with not wanting AFICS members to be contacted about pension matters? Just asking. Reminder to AFICS: we're members too, and as such we're within our rights to communicate with one another on matters of mutual interest.

AFICS on pension matters: Inconvenient truths > distortion (15 July 2015)

In her latest letter of 9 July 2015 (posted below) the AFICS President states that she’s decided to adopt a more positive tone “in the hope that [we] will reciprocate by replacing at least a part of the acrimony with a measure of understanding."

We too wish to be positive.  So no need to linger over the spectacle of the President, in her attempt at gentle persuasion, unleashing nine less-than-gentle words in rapid succession: "frustration, unfair, criticism, disappointment, insistence, distorting, mischaracterizing, allegations, acrimony" --  purportedly describing our feelings and conduct.