After UN Staff Vote "No Confidence" In Ban Ki-moon, & Talks Break Down in Mexico City, Ban Blames General Assembly

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 -- Blame for the breakdown in UN labor relations is being passed to the General Assembly by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. But is the GA the reason why the Staff Union voted "no confidence" in Ban earlier this year?

  On June 17, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about a story it had exclusively published the day previous: the abrupt termination of the UN Staff Management Committee meeting in Mexico City on June 14.

  The Staff Union said that Ban's Secretariat gave a proposal late that sought to abrogate their negotiating rights. But Del Buey on June 17 blamed it all on the General Assembly, and said the proposal had been given four weeks in advance. From the UN's transcript:

Inner City Press: there was this meeting in Mexico City of the Staff Management Committee and the staff union has said that, basically, the Secretariat tried to abrogate their negotiating rights and ended the meeting several days early, including wasting resources of people that flew down there. Is there some response from the Secretariat to the claim by their union that they are not negotiating in good faith and wasted resources?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: As a matter of fact there is.

Inner City Press: Great. Let’s do it.

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: The Staff-Management Committee meeting in Mexico City (SMC-II) ended prematurely on Friday, as you have well noted. The impasse arose related to the role of the Committee itself which, since 2011, has been governed by the Secretary-General’s bulletin (ST/SGB/2011/6), which provides that issues be resolved by consensus. The General Assembly, in its resolution 67/255, requested that the bulletin be revised in line with existing staff regulations. A draft revised bulletin was shared with members of the Staff-Management Committee, which removed the requirement for agreement by consensus.

Staff representatives disagreed with the General Assembly. While we recognize the importance of this issue to staff representatives, the position of the Member States is clear and the administration cannot revisit the issue with the General Assembly, as suggested by staff representatives.

Management demonstrated flexibility and encouraged the staff representatives at the SMC-II on several occasions to provide constructive suggestions that could be incorporated into the draft revision of the said resolution. Regrettably, staff representatives at SMC-II were not prepared to stick to the program of work that had been agreed upon and discussed the many other important agenda items. It was, therefore, not possible to continue this meeting.

Inner City Press: Can I just ask, because I have seen the president of the union’s e-mail saying that management’s presentation of this issue was done after the document submission deadline, at the eleventh hour, so if it was so clear, why didn’t the Secretariat tell them in advance? Probably you could have figured it out it was going to break down in Mexico. Is it the case that this was turned into, to the other side too late?

Deputy Spokesperson: I don’t believe it was; I believe it was sent about four weeks prior to the meeting.

  We'll have more on this. But it is clear that the Staff Union's "no confidence" in Ban Ki-moon resolution, overwhelmingly adopted earlier this year, cannot be blamed on the General Assembly. Watch this site.

Exclusive: Ban Ki-moon's UN Tries to Remove Staff Union's Negotiated Rights, Ends Meeting, No Confidence Redux

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 -- Labor relations in the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have hit a new low, with his negotiators abruptly terminating a Staff Management Committee session in Mexico City, accused of trying to eliminate Staff Union negotiating rights.

  This follows the New York Staff Union's resolution of "no confidence" in Ban Ki-moon, and a May Day march in front of UN headquarters, protesting their treatment under Ban.Video here.

  Inner City Press has exclusively covered each of these, and each time when questioned Ban's Office of the Spokesperson has indicated that the rift would be solved. But if anything, things have gotten worse.

  The no-confidence resolution was the result of an amendment from the floor by a sub-set of the Union rooted in the Publishing Section, targeted for 99 job cuts. (There are other cuts, still unexplained, set for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations despite it stated build-up for Mali.)

  Now the official president of the union, who at least initially opposed the no-confidence resolution, has sent the e-mail below. Where is this headed? And where is Ban Ki-moon? (The answer is, traveling again, while the UN further decays).

From: NY Staff Union president Barbara Tavora-Jainchill
Date: 06/16/2013 03:12PM
Subject: Management terminates negotiations with staff unions - We are on our own

Dear Colleagues, It is with great disappointment that we inform you that the annual negotiations between the UN’s staff unions and global management, held this year in Mexico City, were terminated early by management Friday evening as unions vigorously defended you from attempts to remove negotiating rights.

The abrupt ending of the Staff Management Committee (SMC II) on its third of seven days means that key issues relating to the Secretary-General’s reform agenda are now left unresolved. These include mobility, introducing more transparent guidelines for downsizing, reviewing the situation of field staff, fixing the internal justice system, travel standards and a hiring freeze to protect General Service staff already on board.

We were surprised management should choose to terminate the meeting so early. Management had introduced a proposal after the document submission deadline to remove unions’ right to negotiate; a right unions had won after four years of dedicated campaigning. Staff unions wanted adequate time to get to the bottom of management’s proposal in order to make sure that a proper negotiating framework would continue to be in place. Management wanted to cut short this agenda item and move onto other issues, proposing to come back to it time-permitting. Staff put two options forward to overcome the disagreement including deferring the issue of negotiating rights to the following session. Management rejected them both and then insisted on the early termination of the meeting.

We continue to believe that a constructive dialogue between staff and management, as set out in the current framework (ST/SGB/2011/6), makes the United Nations strong especially when significant reforms are being proposed that impact staff welfare. We therefore urge management to return to the table and call for SMC to be resumed. Until that meeting is concluded, it goes without saying that none of the Secretary-General’s proposals on the agenda should be implemented.

We believe the early walk out by management demonstrates a lack of flexibility required for a negotiation and an irresponsible use of resources, both of the organization and of those unions that paid to send delegates to the meeting.

   And amid this, as Inner City Press has also exclusively reported, the UN has been paying $1200 for Romano Prodi to travel from Bologna to Rome - as Ban's envoy on the Sahel, no less. Watch this site.