Summary of FICSA Positions on ICSC Items

Conditions of service of the Professional and higher categories:

• Evolution of the margin: A real salary increase is required. To address inadequate margins at the higher levels, a one-time special increase is required at those levels. It is not appropriate to address the problem on a cost-neutral basis which would result in salary decreases at the lower levels, at which it is already difficult to recruit staff. The establishment of a Senior Executive Service should not be a substitute for addressing margin anomalies.

• Review of the rationale, scope, methodology and level of children's and secondary dependant's allowances: FICSA supports the increase in the secondary dependant's allowance, agrees that the children's allowance should be maintained as a social benefit, and that the methodology be retained for headquarters duty stations and adjusted every two years, as necessary.

• Establishment of grade equivalencies between the United States federal civil service and the United Nations system: Expand reference group outside Wash.,D.C., like the World Bank; Reflect "emerging" occupations

• Base/floor salary scale: ICSC recommends a 5.1% increase on a no loss/no gain basis. Staff and administrations support a real increase, and a solution to the growing negative margin at higher grade levels. The expected increase for January 2001 for the comparator is 4.2%, which will bring the margin close to 110, the lowest end of the range.

• Rental subsidy scheme: Free or supplemented housing provided by governments or other outside entities is a "supplemental payment" contrary to staff rules. The organizations need to adjust subsidy values for each duty station. Nearly all outside schemes examined by ICSC were more generous than the UN scheme, while the relevant salaries were also significantly higher. Action is required beyond ICSC noting the issue.

• Geneva post adjustment: Maintain the status quo. The official duty station is Geneva; price collection should be limited to the duty station.

Conditions of service of the General Service and other locally recruited staff:

• Survey of best prevailing conditions of employment in New York: There were problems with employer participation. ICSC should reconsider the methodology and eliminate constraints. It should be verified that employers who finally participated are actually "best employers". The profit-sharing schemes of four surveyed employers were not quantified.

• Salaries of Paris staff - developments regarding hours of work and the French tax system: The salary scales adopted last year should be corrected, and the decision to phase in the effect of CRDS set aside, since it is a social levy, not a tax.

• Survey of best prevailing conditions of employment in Montreal: The strict application of the methodology by ICSC limited the amount of the increase. ICAO Administration favoured re-opening the discussions on several issues to esnure that particular aspects of the local labour market were taken into account, but ICSC rejected that request. ICSC does not honour the requirements of its interlocuters.

• Review of the headquarters salary survey methodology - Decisions of the International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal regarding the phasing out of the language factor at Rome and Vienna: ILOAT was correct in setting aside the ICSC decision to phase out the language factor in Rome, saying "The manner of applying Flemming does not turn on such variables as the desire of staff to keep their jobs or the ease or difficulty of finding good local recruits (...) It is right to adjust pay by a language factor when jobs that do not require proficiency in a second language are matched with jobs that do."

Education grant

• Review of the purpose, scope and application: The World Bank "frontloading approach is not appropriate for the UN system. Education grant practices should be harmonized according to the practice of specialized agencies in Geneva, or the status quo maintained.

• Review of the level of the grant: FICSA position: FICSA welcomes the increases in five currency areas, and the decision to maintain two separate US dollar areas.

Recognition of language knowledge

• Harmonise schemes so that the allowance is an incentive to develop linguistic skills useful to the organization; increase the language incentive for Professional staff; maintain language incentive as pensionable.

Human resources management

• Framework for Human Resources Management: The Framework needs further development. Staff should be placed at its centre; it should be harmonized with the Standards of Conduct with regard to staff/management relations and the role of staff representatives in decision-making; the legal basis of employment in an international organization, including identification of rights and protections needs development.

• Review of the pay and benefits system: The problem is clearcut: pay is not competitive and it is difficult to recruit and retain the best people. But instead of increasing pay, money is being invested in a two-year "review of the pay system", which will further delay any real salary increase. FICSA does not support a Senior Executive Service, broadbanding, specialized pay or performance pay. Neither FICSA nor CCISUA will participate in the focus groups. As the Commission will have the final decision on the issues, the work of the focus groups will not carry any real weight.

• Draft standards of conduct for the international civil service: The 1954 Standards have not been updated, if that is to be understood as modernizing. The Standards should remain integrity-based; the recipro