FIELD STAFF COUNCIL
FSC XXIV
REPORT OF UNFSU COUNCIL MEETING, HELD IN BRINDISI, ITALY
12th- 16thOctober 2015
Attendees
TOWLER, Steven / FSU PresidentSCARR, Philip / FSU 2nd Vice President
COLUCCI, Rosa / Administrative Assistant
GEBRU, Saron / MINURSO-FSU Representative
AZIN, Jawid Ahmad / MINUSMA-FSU Representative
MESSINA, Rocco / MINUSTAH-FSU Chairperson
REYNOLD, Louis / MONUSCO-FSU Vice-Chairperson
POWELL, Robert / RSCE-FSU Chairperson
DRYANSKY, Andre / UNAKRT-FSU Chairperson
HOXHA, Bashkim / UNAMA-FSU Representative
SOLVSTEN, Kim / UNAMI-FSU Chairperson
CAESAR JR, Louis / UNAMID-FSU Representative
BERNATEAU, Emmanuel / UNDOF-FSU Chairperson
STEPANOVIC, Dejan / UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson
BUTLER, James / UNIFIL-FSU Vice Chairperson
DE BARROS, Alda / UNIOGBIS-FSU Chairperson
ORTIZ, William / UNMIK-FSU Chairperson
OLUGBEMI, Olufemi / UNMIL-FSU Chairperson
MUNYWOKI, Michael DM / UNMISS-FSU Chairperson
AL-SHEHABI, Amal / UNMOGIP-FSU Chairperson
ZAYDANE, Elmostafa / UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson
MATTOO, Vimlesh / UNSOA/UNSOM/SESG-GL/SEGM-FSU Vice Chairperson
SINGH, Navdeep / UNTSO/UNSCO-FSU Chairperson
AWOYEMI, Olubuckola / UNFSU Legal Advisor
LIST OF SUPPORT STAFF
AT FSC-XXIV MEETING
BIONDI, Elena / Minute TakerMonday, 12th October 2015
The meeting convened at 9:00 AM
Issues of the day:
Registration, Briefing by UNGSC Training Centre Staff
Address by Mr Nicolas Von Ruben, Director UNGSC
Introduction of participants
Opening address by UNFSU Executive
Group Photograph and Tribute to UN staff who have fallen in the Service of Peace
Adoption of Financial Report & Election of Treasurer
FSU Communications strategy; Adoption of the WebEx system; Use of external expertise; General Discussion.
General Briefing on HQ Meetings and Working Groups (Stephen Towler, President UNFSU)
UNAKRT Briefing on Solidarity with National Staff Association
Questions with Director FPD, USG DFS & Chief RSCE
MORNING SESSION
Introductions
The Director of UNGSC introduces himself and welcomes everyone to UNLB for the Annual Field StaffCouncil meeting; he briefly remarks the importance of the gathering and thenmentions the upcoming changes in the organization as well as reassuring everybody that everything will be done to support the staff across the missions; finally, he concludes his speech by wishing everybody a productive week.
After that, the coordinator of the Conference and Learning Centre Paola Pinto welcomes everybody, gives some information about the services available and announces an upcoming video with further instructions and details; she then thanks everybody for having chosen the UNGSC for their Conference and wishes everybody a fruitful week.
The president of the FSU introduces himself and welcomes the members attending the meeting, giving some highlights of his past experience.
After him, the Vice President also introduces himself and his past experiences as a UN Staff Member and wished everybody a very productive week. Then, the administrative assistant and the minute taker introduce themselves upon invitation from the FSU President.
Finally, the attendees introduce themselves and their current position as FSU Representatives and greet their colleagues.
A staff member of the Conference and Training Centre shows everybody a useful video on the UNSGC services and facilities.
Opening Address by FSU Presidents
(See Annex I)
“Remember the fallen” by FSU Vice President Philip Scarr
(See Annex II)
Adjustment of the Agenda and Adoption of Minutes of the XXIII Annual Council
The FSU President announces to everybody that unfortunately no Minutes of the last Annual Council were produced in written form, after much trying and asks for any comments or questions on this issue.
The former FSU President James Butler comments on this: he says that they actually followed the common practice of having the minutes taken internally, but one member did not finalize the work despite many follow-ups and reminders. He then reassures everybody on the fact that the recordings couldbe found, sent out and used as such.
The UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson proposes that from now on the Council will always hire a minute taker externally for future occasions and that it becomes best practice for future council meetings, considering the importance of the decisions and discussion made in such gatherings. So he makes a motion for the executive to be always supported by an external minute taker and gets seconded by UNMISS Chairperson.
No one votes against it so the motion is carried.
Adoption of the financial report (Annex III)
The President gives to the attendees few minutes to read the copy of the Financial Report they were given at the beginning of the meeting.
The UNTSO Chairperson asks if the Members Contributions deposit is intended on a monthly basis.
The Executive Members explain that itis the total amount of monthly contributions paid by bank transfer.
The UNAMI-FSU Chairperson notices that the general financial situation can be considered fairly satisfactory, especially if compared to the one of the past few years; then he requests that in the future the executive will approve Business Class Travel expenses, because sometimes travels are quite long and the Business Class option can be justified, yet it has to be approved by the executive body first.
The UNMIL-FSU Chairperson requests the distribution of the Audit Outcome and the Executive replies that a copy of the Audit Report has already been sent via email and another one has been provided on paper.
The President then asks if there are any further comments on the Financial Report. The MINUSTAH-FSUchairperson proposes for the approval of the report, seconded by UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson.
The report is approved with no further comments.
The President then continues with the agenda, that is the adoption of a Treasurer.
The UNIFIL-FSU Vice Chairperson proposes that UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson should carry this task, because he is already based in UNLB and has access to closer interactions with the Executive and Administration. The UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson agrees, positive that he will receive the maximum support from everybody.
The President asks for any objections on this. The RSCE-FSU Chairperson observes that, due to the difficulties of the tasks, the Treasurer will certainly need a backstop.
The UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson agrees and actually recalls a Constitution Provision for a Treasurer Assistant. The President then proceeds to find a volunteer and the RSCE-FSU Chairperson underlines that the eligible person must be working in the same place of the main Treasurer so that substitutions are easy and immediate.
The UNGSC/UNLB-FSU Chairperson proposes to contact the UNGSC Chief Accounts Ms Anna Elyseeva and to ask her if she accepts to volunteer for it.
The President leaves the Decision for later and in the meantime he proceeds with the official adoption of the Report.
The RSCE-FSU Chairperson points out that the majority of the attendees are well aware of the scheduled travel and the foreseeable expenses coming from them, but many other do not, so it would be advisable to give them a clearer picture of the situation.
The UNIFIL-FSU Vice Chairperson states that because of short notice meeting invitations within the organization, it is very difficult to calculateforthcoming expenses.
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson requests some clarifications about figures regarding staff contributions, to which the President replies that all the money he is referring to is actually exclusively staff members’ voluntary contributions.
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson then asks if there are any plans to implement that into UMOJA any time soon and the President explains that the FSU willuse UMOJA for official travel expenses, paid for by the organization;, he clarifies that this money does not belong to the Union, it belongs to the Staff members so for this very reason it will not go into UMOJA.
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson then asks if there are any alternative funding sources other than staff contributions such as fund raising.The FSU 2nd Vice President replies that it would be very problematic to do so, as it has already happened in the past, so there have been no attempts recently.
The MINUSTAH-FSU Chairperson maintains that the FSU should also be classified as an opt-out organization for being responsible for all staff representation. He then criticizes the choice of holding the FSU Council meeting in Brindisi instead of New York, which would keep the Union much closer to the UN HQ, therefore more efficient.
The UNAMI-FSU Chairperson makes a suggestion, which is actually a compromise, inspired by a different approach and that would be to have a Vice President there to represent the Union.
The UNIFIL-FSU Vice Chairperson approves the suggestion and encourages it. The UNMISS-FSU Chairperson expresses his agreement to the proposal.
Finally, the President asks to the MINUSTAH-FSU Chairperson to write down the reached compromise and be willing to assist him during the formal requests. The latter agrees.
The UNAMA-FSU Representative complains about a general unawareness of the work that the FSU is doing for the staff and requests for a major reach-out policy and communication strategy improvement as well as the production of a greater amount of informative material.
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson asks to the Executive to obtain a written version reply from New York about the issue of sending a representative over there as soon as there is one and to send it to all the international staff. The request is accepted.
The UNMIK-FSU Chairperson remarks that the Union is part of the Secretariat and still we feel discriminated.He therefore, agrees to the proposal about getting the office established inUNHQ.
The Agenda is then approved upon UNIFIL, UNAMI and RSCE proposal.
Communication Strategy
The President thanks everybody who has approved the WebEx System and says that there are some replies still missing to complete the process. He then opens the general discussion on Communication.
The FSU 2nd Vice President takes the opportunity to address the Communication Strategy issue as a multilevel problem, as he has personally experienced confronting his opinions with other colleagues and staff members. In an era of revolutionary changes that have interested the actual means of communication, which now rely mostly on technology, the array of choices has broadened significantly. So it is now the time to overcome the traditional means, which mostly resulted in periodic written manifestos, and embrace the much more interactive options which allow everyone to constantly receive and send either updates or feedbacks. He therefore asks for any contribution to the floor.
The UNAKRT-FSU Chairperson states that the website is very difficult to access, it should be better designed and information should be much easier to disseminate.
The President then reassures his public that the executive has already noticed these flaws and is taking charge of fixing them - in fact a lot of progress has already been reached in terms of rating and visibility - as well as the problem of inconsistent links, as also pointed out by the UNAKRT-FSU Chairperson.
The UNMIK-FSU Chairperson fully supports the last suggestion. He also proposes the dispatch of any official communication to each mission’sDMS/CMS for the upcoming future, because most of the times staff members have proved to be almost completely unaware of the FSU purposes, policy and even existence.
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson adds that maybe financial resources are necessary as well; then he suggests that a representative of the FSU should be present at Induction Trainings to share more information. He also suggests that direct linking out to the Union website should become mandatory for every mission.
The UNTSO-FSU Chairperson gives his point of view as a direct contributor to the newer version of the website and still asks for future regular updates.
The President responds to all these observations, by confirming that he is personally participating in the perfecting work that is currently being done on the whole structure and information access of the website.
The UNAMI-FSU Chairperson develops the UNMIK-FSU Chairperson’s suggestion by reminding the executive that now global staff email lists exist and can be used for the stated purpose of major outreach because they depend from the New York HQ and allow a better dissemination of information without the use of single DMS/CMS. As regards to the websites, he then urges the Executive to move to POINT, which is a share-point architecture; it is easy to update, user-friendly for the Administrative Assistant and would be extremely useful for the communication strategy.
The UNSOA-FSU Vice Chairperson agrees that missions are not well informed about the FSU work and suggests to put the council members in CC because sometimes the communication is blocked. Also, he suggests to put a link to the website on POINT.
The UNAKRT-FSU Chairperson puts also a stress on the need of an artistic touch in the website designing makeover in order to catch people’s attention.
The RSCE-FSU Chairperson then points out that the primary means of communication are the chairpersons and representative themselves, so everybody should count on their own personality and spread the message directly to the staff from more “human” perspective.
The UNAMID-FSU Representative takes the chance to report some communication problems because when the council sends out information, sometimes they do not receive emails so it would be better to have corporate email addresses.
The President replies that he has formally asked for corporate email addresses but not everybody got it or replied to it, so he invites anyone who has not to try and get it or reply to it as soon as possible.
The UNAMI-FSU Chairperson addresses some of the concerns. First, he states that in DFS there is a lot of capacity that can contribute to the design process of the website. As regards email addresses, he adds that there is the need of direct communication with the council members because some information is strictly confidential.
The former FSU President then points out that in the pastmany efforts have been put into this aspect of communication strategy but the main problem is that sometimes the responsibilities for inefficient communicationdepends on the individuals and therefore, suggests that when a representative is elected, he/she should organize a meeting to introduce themselves to the staff. As former President, he already began to search for suggestions and input in the past but has received almost no replies at all. He then discusses the procedure of broadcasting, he expresses his attitude as completely against delegating this opportunity to DMSs and CMSs because the control of the vehicle which spreads the information must lay in the FSU members hands only in order to avoid misunderstanding and manipulation. He acknowledges that the message sent out is usually very bad and the achievements are not outstanding and too many times discussions are focused on individual cases and small impact issues, rather than on more general high impact questions. He warns against the use of Facebook because it leads to public abuse.
In any case, he finds that it is very important to set standards of communication in order to avoid personal abuse, as has happened in the past.
The UNSOA-FSU Vice Chairperson agrees on that need and says that he is willing on giving a post on that as soon as possible.
The MINUSTAH-FSU Chairperson recounts some problems that the mission has had with general email and password settings and tries to report back if it has been solved or not as soon as possible. He then reports that the mission is no longer able to broadcast on its own but has to go to the bulletin board due to the adoption of Outlook. He then suggests that the Executive should try to set up a new manifesto with all the aims and goals for the future and also put into the agenda a series of general meetings with all the missions to communicate the content of the general strategy. This will have two positive outcomes: first the Field Staff will be finally directly addressed, and then the presence of the Executive directly into the mission will reinforce the committees’ authority as well.
The proposal is seconded by UNMIK, everyone approves and the proposal is carried.
The President then asks if there are other missions not able to broadcast and asks for written communication so that he can take care of that later on.
The UNMIL-FSU Chairperson asks that missions that cannot broadcast are listed into the minutes to avoid the DMSs taking the complaints too personally, they are:
-UNMOGIP
-UNMIK
-UNMIL
-UNDOF
The UNSMIL-FSU Chairperson asks more details about FSU staff regulation on broadcasting, to which the President replies reminding that he has already sent to the committees the whole list of their rights of communication. ST/AI/293.