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STU/65th Council/13/021
12 November 2013

Dear colleagues,

You will find attached the oral intervention, delivered by STU on 8 November 2013 during the fifth meeting of the APX Commission at the 37th Session of the General Conference, and here the addendum of the STU on the document 37 C/38: “The state of the Medical Benefits Fund and introduction of a new governance structure”.

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On behalf of STU, I first of all would like to state that we do not agree with two assertions made by the Administration.

Firstly, the after-service health insurance (ASHI) is a liability of the Organization. If UNESCO ceased to exist, it would have a liability of some $700 million at any day. This matter was inaccurately presented by the Chief Financial Officer.

Secondly, we also reject the position taken by the Legal Adviser that the General Conference can adopt new rules of the Medical Benefits Fund. This is an issue that we, staff members and Member States, need to solve together. So we are not seeking to have a confrontation on that.

In any country in the world, social security is one of the most fundamental rights of employees. In the United Nations system, the social security system is perforce independent of the State, of the staff member’s native country. This is what makes this issue so complicated:  staff members need a social security which is independent of their nationality, of their origin, of the country to which they will retire. This is the fundamental principle on which the international civil service is built.

It is for UNESCO to deal with this issue.  Over the past 16 years since the administration of M. Federico Mayor, then M. Koïchiro Matsuura, and now finally Ms Irina Bokova has timidly proposed introducing one percent (1%) into the staffing budget in order to cope with the ASHI problem.

But the real issue is that the contributions to the Fund are bound to decrease and the needs of staff and retired staff are bound to grow.

Concerning the rules that need to, and could, be changed, the way the Administration has handled this matter is irresponsible. The Board of Management was presented with a proposal for new rules worked out by a single consulting agency, already on the Board of Management. The UNESCO Staff Union (STU) had very strong reservations regarding both the manner and the content of the presentation. The manner in which it was presented to the participants was very well been described in the Resolution*, and I thank you, Chair, that you drew the attention of the delegates to this Resolution. Because the Resolution was only aimed at pinpointing serious shortcomings in the management of the Medical Benefits Fund, not by participants but by the Administration. For this reason, we would be very grateful if an external independent audit of all these issues could be carried out.

It is not possible, either for staff or for the Director General or for any Member State, to take any informed decision on these issues without an objective view on the matter.

Thank you very much, Chair.

* Resolution of the Extraordinary General Assembly of Participants (4 September 2013), 37C/38 Add. Part 2