UNITED NATIONS
Mrs M.-J. Peters
Inter-Agency Advisor on HR Management
Administrative Committee on Coordination Secretariat
Palais des Nations
1211 Genève 10

July 16, 2001

 

Dear Mrs. Peters,

We have now received the definitive text of the 2000-2005 Agreement between ACC and AIIC (which we understand will no longer be amended and to which no further reservations are now admissible), which was examined by our Council last week. On this understanding and pending reception by AIIC of the "certified true copy", as per Art. 1 of the Agreement, which I gather you will be distributing once all Organisations and AIIC have sent in their letters of ratification, I wish to inform you of our ratification of the said Agreement. By "Agreement", we mean approval of the contents of:

• The Agreement as drafted;
• This letter;
• The record of discussions leading to the Agreement and, as has been the practice hitherto;
• The commitments on both sides contained within past records since 1974, together with any further bi-lateral or multi-lateral Agreements entered into since then by AIIC and one or more of the signatory Organisations unless subsequently countermanded.

We wish to express our regret that during the negotiations it proved impossible to consider either the individual salary rates payable in different locations - the illogical pattern of which will become all the more obvious once the Euro comes into full use - or our claim for an improvement in Social Security contributions. We trust that next time Organisations will be more forthcoming.

We understand that the reservations by ICAO regarding Staff Member Status and Cancellation, which, as they stand, are totally unacceptable, will be the subject of consultation between ACC Secretariat and that Organisation this summer. We await the results of these consultations.

As regards the reservations by UNESCO and WHO on work for a sixth meeting in three days, we have already indicated our position in the footnote to the text of the relevant article. Given that during the negotiations Organisations specifically linked the levels of salary rates to the question of workload and reduced the amount they might have been prepared to pay in the light of our response, we do not consider ourselves in any way bound by the two Organisations' reservations and reserve our right to negotiate with them bi-laterally or to take the necessary action to defend our Members' interests should the need arise.

Similarly, and in line with the relevant footnote, we reserve our right to take up the question of taxation with the Organisations with reservation on this issue as appropriate.

We again wish to draw attention to the practice by UN of issuing consecutive contracts of two, three or more weeks, carefully omitting (contrary to what is applied to all other categories of Staff) the inclusion of either the Monday or the Friday in consecutive contracts, in order to avoid paying for the week-ends, thus saving 3-day's pay per fortnight in exchange for one meeting's work less. This practice started in Geneva but, during the 1994 negotiations, the UN representative stated (paragraph 20 of the record) that... "the Organisation confirmed its agreement with both the letter and the spirit of the current text (on payment of week-ends) and its commitment to make every effort to ensure their application in practice..." Instead of following up on this commitment, UN now applies the above system in New York as well, - even if this necessitates importing more interpreters from abroad and paying them per-diem!

This UN practice is based on a misinterpretation of footnote 13 to Article 20 which was added at the request of AIIC to specify a reference to "pro rata" which had hitherto been in the record only, in order clearly to define the number of meetings to be worked during contracts of less than one week. It was agreed that the appropriate numbers were "5 meetings in a three-day contract" and "a maximum of 7 meetings in a four-day contract", 6 being mathematically correct. Our interpretation of the intention of the word "maximum" remains that this implies something exceptional, intended to accommodate Organisations with genuine difficulties so that they could overcome them at no greater cost. We never imagined when agreeing to the text, that one Organisation would cynically use our good-will gesture simply to reduce interpreters' incomes.

The UN practice is not only unfair but discriminatory, not only with respect to interpreters, but also to those Organisations which do not have a large complement of staff interpreters to re-deploy (and thus still have to pay week-ends), if one recalls that the salary rates initially agreed took account of a number of "non-working" days, calculated on the basis of what was then an average contract length of approximately 3-weeks.

Furthermore this device, intended to save money, is counter-productive. It helps to deter sufficient numbers of free-lances with the right language combinations from moving into the sector, as young interpreters simply cannot make a living or, in Geneva, even earn enough to meet the local residence requirements.

We feel that the UN is not only flouting the spirit of the Agreement but also blatantly obviating its own staff rules and therefore give notice that we shall attempt to resist to the extent possible. However, in the general interest, we would make a final appeal to the UN that it re-think its policy.

On the occasion of the last negotiations AIIC once again accepted the "differential" in workload as compared to Regular Staff. (8-meetings per week instead of 7). We are prepared to abide by this arrangement in the future, provided that we can consider that the "workload issue" is now definitively closed. If, however, at future negotiations, Organisations were again to wish to reopen the issue, we would naturally revert to our claim for parity with Regular Staff, a claim which we, in any case, are far from abandoning as regards Salary Rates.

In addition, I would be grateful if you could clarify the situation of WTO, particularly as that Organisation, a former member of CCAQ, now pays rates based solely on the Swiss Franc, but might well hold meetings abroad in the future at the "World Rate" (expressed in US$). What rate will they pay?

May I, in conclusion, thank all those Organisations that have shown understanding for our position and particularly WIPO, ILO and UPU which have withdrawn substantive reservations. I must also thank the Secretariat of the former CCAQ, now ACC, without whom none of this would have been possible.

You may wish to distribute this letter to all Organisations parties to the Agreement.

Yours sincerely,

Jean-Pierre Allain

President