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STU/65^e Conseil/13/012
3 October 2013

Please find below a copy of the letter to the Director General dated 20 September 2013 which has remained unanswered to this day.

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Madam Director-General,

STU wishes to inform you of the growing concern, anxiety and fear prevailing among an overwhelming majority of the staff of UNESCO with regard to restructuring and possible job cuts.

We have had several meetings and discussions with the management to reduce the impact of the current crisis in the Organization on its staff.

It is now essential to make it clear to all staff (not just STU) your commitment and that of your administration, to safeguard the employment of colleagues and to convey unequivocally your commitment to the points mentioned below.

These issues were the subject of discussions and exchanges between you and STU, as well as communications and instructions to ADGs, Directors and the SMT. It has now become urgent to communicate directly with the staff, with a view to transparency and appeasement.

In the absence of such action, the STU fears that it will be forced to revise the terms of its cooperation with the administration, regardless of the paramount importance it attaches thereto. We must now move from the stage of consultation/information to one of action and a concrete commitment from the management.

1. Public commitment by the Director-General to the staff to defend the staff before the Executive Board and the General Conference.
2. Immediate release of additional circulars calling for voluntary leave without pay, part-time and job-sharing over a period of two years (2014-2015), in addition to the circular in September 2013 on agreed separation, with a deadline for volunteering in order to take into account the savings thus made ​​in the revision of the number of posts that could be abolished
3. Quantified evaluation of savings in personnel costs on the basis of voluntary separations, moves to part-time work, leave without pay and job-sharing and therefore consideration of these savings in the revision of the number of posts that could be abolished
4. Implementation without delay of a real tool for skills assessment before any redeployment exercise (and not the new management of competencies tool MyTalent launched today, September 20, 2013)
5. Firm commitment to conduct a genuinely transparent global and therefore intersectoral redeployment exercise, including AOs and EOs, regardless of the number of posts that could be abolished
6. Immediate cessation of any, including current, external recruitment
7. Immediate cessation of any internal movement of personnel other than by recruitment (including temporary secondments)
8. Immediate cessation of any renewal of contracts beyond the age of retirement
9. Immediate cessation of any contracts for retirees
10. Publication of restructuring carried out since 2012 (central services, BFM, etc.).

Please accept, Madam Director-General, the assurance of my deep respect.

Elia Matias

President of STU