The diversity of our membership – representing all categories of staff, including those on the regular budget and those funded through extra budgetary sources, in both HQ and field duty stations – is an asset which we bring to bear in policy discussions. Of the three staff federations, UNISERV has a great balance between unions and associations representing staff within the UN Secretariat and the funds and programmes.
In recent years, UNISERV has built expertise and made concrete interventions on behalf of member unions on a wide variety of technical areas. These include, but are not limited to: salaries and benefits, conditions of service, allowances and entitlements, contracts, staff on precarious contracts, GS salary methodology, post adjustment issues, separation payments, job classification standards, pension payment delays, pensionable remuneration, prevention of harassment, internal justice, security, safety and health, performance management, mobility, staff-management relations, gender, LGBTI staff rights and work-life balance.
We are currently hard at work preparing our inputs for the upcoming ICSC working group on parental leave. This will be an immense step of modernizing our regulations to include co-parenting, adoption and equality for all.
UNISERV represents its membership in a variety of common system fora, including:
The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) and its working groups, on issues such as currently:
Parental Leave
General Service Salary Survey Methodology
Hardship duty station classification
Harmonization of conditions of service in non-family duty stations
Review of the post adjustment system and operational rules
Increases in pensionable remuneration
Advisory committee on post adjustment questions
ICSC reform
The Fifth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which considers the ICSC’s recommendations, as well as its Advisory Committee on Post-Adjustment Questions (ACPAQ)
The High-Level Committee on Management, which is the coordinating mechanism for the UN Common System, as well as its subsidiary bodies and working groups:
The Human Resources Network
The Inter-Agency Security Management Network
Task force on Duty of Care in high risk environments
Working Group on ASHI
Board for the UN System Mental Health Strategy
Contact group on the electronic travel advisory (e-TA)
The UN Joint Staff Pension Fund
In addition to the common system groups and bodies identified above, UNISERV works with its sister federations, CCISUA and FICSA.
UNISERV’s and FICSA’s collaboration is articulated in the cooperation agreement, according to which the two federations cooperate on several fronts. We remain committed to working constructively when such engagement benefits our members. The benefits of this cooperation include coordinated positions, access to FICSA-provided training and sharing the cost of consultants when external expertise or legal advice is required.