FSU PresidentsOpening Addressto United Nations Field Staff Union Council Meeting XXIV- 12 to 16 inclusiveOctober 2015.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We would like to welcome you to the 24th UNFSU Council Meeting and hope you all had a safe journey and arrived with bags.

It is an honour for me to welcome you all and especially our new members to this 24thMeeting of the FSU Council. Let me introduceMr. Philip Scarrour 2ndVice President whom I wish to sincerely thank and praisefor all his efforts in the short time we have been here and in preparations for this meeting. I would also like express,on behalf of the UNFSU, our sincere thanks and gratitude to Ms. Rosa Colucci our Administrative Assistant for her outstanding work and dedication to the FSU and especially to the Executive members both past and present. She works tirelessly to ensure that we are able to do our jobs successfully and voluntarily dedicates many extra hours to achieve this.

Only last Friday the Garden of Remembrance for UN Staff which was so generously donated by Mr.Nicolas Von Ruben,the Director UNGSC, was completed and we will later hold a small memorial service.

I sincerely like to thank Mr Nicolas Von Ruben, Director UNGSC/UNLB and All the Staff of the Training Centre for hosting and providing all the facilities for this conference for us and also a sincere thanks to Ms. Rosa Colucci again who put so much work into making all the arrangements with the great supportand assistance of UNGSC Staff, many thanks again to you and all for your great work and assistance.

Staffing Issues:

It has again been a volatile year for the Staff we represent with regard job losses due to downsizing,restructure and nationalizationof posts, these changes are in line with the requirements of the General Assembly in itsResolutions, not that we agree with the way they are being implemented in most missions,only recently we made aware of staff receiving only one days written notice that there terminations has finally been signed off. The impact on staff is now being clearly realized as we go through these processes along.Along with yourselves we feel the need to push even more to ensure that reviews take place and endeavours are made to reduce any losses.

The UNFSU must be part of any review and implementation which is planned or ongoing, this is fully supported by FPD.

Meetings, VTC;

In the brief time we have been in office we have had meetings with USG DFS, USH DM, Director FPD and VTC’s with other management some attended by other Staff Associations and Unions. I will brief you on the working groups later in the Council Meeting.

UNISERV:

Only in the last few days I was accepted as the General Secretary of UNISERV and intend to use this position to further our cause and with the other federations continue the work trying to mitigate further the effects of the Report of the International Civil Service Commission for the year 2015.

Comment:

Some Committees work tirelessly on the staff issues and I congratulate them for all their hard work and continued support to the staff, if I may suggest I would ask all Committees to remind staff that you are there to assist them, you could do this by sending out a monthly reminder just to keep them informed. It is our intent to increase communication from the Executive, through yourselves to the staff, we will revisit this later during the Meeting.

I thank you for your very kind support and assistance and ask that you continue to support and assist us, in all our future endeavours. We looking forward to a very successful and fruitful meeting,

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