FICSA COUNCIL:
In February the Staff Association participated in the Annual Council of the Federation of International Civil Servants Associations (FICSA).
As you will have seen from the Annual Report, a large proportion of our expenditure goes to FICSA. We are sure you are asking yourself why this is the case and why we felt the need to go all the way to Paris for a week. Staff in general believe that their terms and conditions of service are largely decided locally. In fact, this is often not the case. Most of the terms and conditions of service that impact you individually are set at the UN common system level. We are represented in these discussions by our membership and participation in FICSA. Giving them the tools they need to engage in evidence based intelligent discussion at the UN common systems level is the best approach for improving our work life.
The FICSA Council this year addressed many issues of importance to all staff and we were happy to be able to participate fully in all the sessions, which included:
- Training on the Legal Appeal Process
- Sessions on Staff Management Relations through which were happy to provide input into the Global Staff Satisfaction Survey as well as present our Agreement of Cooperation with UNAIDS administration which was acknowledged to be unique in the UN system. These sessions also addressed the issue of whistle-blowing within the UN system, which we followed with interest.
- Sessions on Professional Salaries and Allowances and the modernizing of the classification of GS posts
- Sessions on Social Security / Occupational Health and Safety: Our colleagues from UN+ and UN Cares presented a joint session to the Council and were happy to sign an MOU with FICSA.
- Sessions on Legal Questions where we brought up our particular issue regarding UNAIDS Secretariat Staff Association membership of staff with UNDP contracts. This issue was not resolved at FICSA, but we will continue to push this as a priority this year.
- Sessions on HRM issues
Following our full participation at this year’s Council we re-iterated our commitment to FICSA as the only body that represents all staff at the highest level in the UN common system. We are more than happy to provide the complete report of our participation to all those interested. In the meantime, all members of the Staff Association are welcome to visit FICSA’s website: http://ficsa.org/ (username: unaids, password: EL175man).
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