UNITED NATIONS
The Director-General of the United Nation’s European headquarters in Geneva, Michael Moller has defended his striking staff after pay cuts were announced.
Mr Moller said that trust in the world body as an employer was taking a hit and he attacked the manner in which the deductions were decided.
It was not clear how many of the roughly 9,500 UN staff members in Geneva joined the strike against a 3.5 per cent pay cut that is expected to swell to more than 5 per cent by June.
Groups of employees stood outside the various entrances to the UN’s compound in the Swiss city, holding banners reading “UN staff in Geneva on strike”.
A few hundred others gathered for a rally within the grounds, hoisting signs that declared no confidence in the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), the New York–based body that imposed the cuts.
Mr Moller said the ICSC, which calculates UN staff salaries across all duty stations including cost-of-living adjustments, needed a shake-up.
“Listen, this is a body that has existed for a very, very long time and hasn’t been reviewed in a long time … the reality of the world and the UN has changed,” Mr Moller said.
“The ICSC is not supposed to be a cost-cutting machine, but a technical department that calculates wages.”
Union leaders insist the ICSC used faulty methodology in its recent cost-of-living calculations that triggered cuts in Geneva as well as steeper deductions in other duty stations, including Tokyo and Bangkok.
Mr Moller warned the UN’s competitiveness in the employment market would suffer.
“It is a question of trust,” he said.
Executive Secretary of the Coordination Council of the UN staff in Geneva, Prisca Chaoui insisted the strike was not over the loss of “a few hundred francs”.
“We’re fighting for a principle we really believe in,” Ms Chaoui said.
Geneva, 26 March 2018
