AG/RES. 1873 (XXXII-O/02)
CAREER SERVICE
(Adopted at the fourth plenary session held on June
4, 2002)
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
HAVING SEEN the Report of the Permanent Council on
the Career Service, CP/doc.3601/02;
RECALLING:
That by Resolution AG/RES. 1596 (XXVIII-O/98), the General Assembly
requested the Permanent Council, with the assistance of the General
Secretariat, to prepare a study with recommendations on the career service
policy of the General Secretariat for review by the General Assembly at its
twenty-ninth regular session;
That the General Assembly has renewed its request to the Permanent
Council to prepare and present for its review the study on career service
policy by resolutions AG/RES. 1647 (XXIX-O/99), AG/RES. 1725 (XXX-O/00), and
AG/RES. 1839 (XXXI-O/01), and it has authorized the Permanent Council to
adopt ad referendum of the General Assembly, “such amendments to
the General Standards and Staff Rules as are necessary in order to implement
a career service system and a personnel policy more in keeping with the
needs and interest of the Organization and with the principles established
in the Charter”;
That to assist the Permanent Council in studying the Career Service,
the Secretary General presented the “Report of the Secretary General on a
Consensus Proposal for Redefining the Career Service in the OAS General
Secretariat,” CP/doc.3469/01, in May 2001 (“the Consensus Proposal”),
which was prepared by a joint working group of the Staff Association and the
Administration;
That at the request of the Permanent Council, the
General Secretariat has presented other valuable documents for evaluating
current career service policy and proposals for changing it;
CONSIDERING:
That a dedicated, committed, and competent staff is the General
Secretariat’s most vital asset;
That as stated in the Secretary General’s Consensus Proposal, “an
enterprise committed to keeping employees that it no longer needs and cannot
quickly and economically retrain becomes inefficient and noncompetitive with
other organizations that provide similar services,” that “the public
sector must take measures to maintain organizational competitiveness to
avoid further reductions and job loss;” and that “the OAS General
Secretariat must demonstrate to its supporters and constituencies that it is
able to deliver services at a level competitive with that offered by other
potential providers”;
That as also stated in the Secretary General’s Consensus Proposal,
“a career service system must be flexible enough to meet the demands of
future direction while ensuring the development and retention of its
institutional memory and, as well, provide for the selection and growth of
the people who will implement that future direction;” and that “it is in
the interest of the Organization to support job security for its staff, to
the extent that such security does not materially effect its competitiveness
and efficiency”;
That the Consensus Proposal advises that, “it is not feasible to
abolish the career service and establish a new system which would modify the
rights and preferences of staff members already in the career service,
unless the basic job security protections which attach to current career
service status are maintained for those staff members”;
That other international organizations are moving towards eliminating
permanent appointments and replacing them with Continuing Contracts, which
may be terminated at any time for cause, subject to the payment of an
indemnity in all cases except termination for serious misconduct;
That both the Career Service and the Consensus Proposal, which
proposes replacing Career Service Appointments with “Indefinite
Appointments,” do not sufficiently address the Organization’s current
needs for flexibility and competitiveness because they both require
time-consuming and costly systems for protecting the preferential placement
and retention rights of Staff, or in the case of the Consensus Proposal, of
staff with “Indefinite Appointments”;
That the elimination of the Career Service Appointment within the OAS
General Secretariat and its replacement with a Continuing Contract similar
to that which is currently under consideration at the United Nations and
other Inter-American Organizations, is more consistent with the Organization’s
financial condition and its needs for institutional competitiveness,
flexibility, and its ability to recruit and retain competent staff than the
Consensus Proposal; and
That the replacement of the Career Service
Appointments by a Continuing Contract as the employment mechanism for
current and future non-Career Service Staff members seeking greater job
stability than that provided under fixed-term contracts should take into
account the special needs and circumstances of the Organization and fully
respect the acquired rights of current Career Service Staff,
RESOLVES:
1.
To close the Career Service and phase it out by attrition in
accordance with the following provisions:
a. The members of the
Career Service shall include only those staff members who entered the Career
Service prior to June 30, 1994, and who are still members of the Career
Service as of June 30, 2002;
b. Pursuant to Article
18.b.iv of the General Standards, all career service vacancies, also known
as “career service slots,” are hereby eliminated, and future career
service vacancies that occur as a result of the separation from service of
Career Staff members shall be automatically eliminated and not be assigned
to any other staff members;
c. All Career Service
Staff members as defined in section “a” above shall retain their
acquired rights under the Career Service provisions in force prior to the
adoption of this resolution.
2.
To create under Article 17 of the General Standards a new type of
employment known as the “Continuing Contract,” as further described in
Article 19 of the Amendments to Chapter III of the General Standards
attached to this Resolution.
3.
To adopt the Amendments to Chapter III of the General Standards
attached to this Resolution.
4.
To instruct the Secretary General to modify the Staff Rules as
required to reflect the Amendments to Chapter III of the General Standards
attached to this Resolution, and to inform the Permanent Council of those
modifications. Any such
modification which requires additional personnel expenditures other than the
modification of Staff Rule 110.7 to accommodate the termination indemnity
expressly approved in Article 19 of the amended General Standards, shall not
enter into force without the Permanent Council’s approval.
5.
To instruct the Secretary General to establish a Special Fund to
which unused authorizations from Object 1 of the Program Budget shall be
transferred at the end of 2002 to finance a reserve for termination
indemnities and other termination entitlements for Career Service Staff and
staff on Continuing Contracts. At
the end of 2003, the General Secretariat shall report on how the funds were
used to the Permanent Council, which will determine if this process should
be renewed in following years. Unless authorized by the Permanent Council,
the amount that may be held in that Special Fund shall not exceed two
percent of the amount budgeted for Object 1 in any given year.
6.
To reiterate the need for appropriate geographical representation of
General Secretariat Staff, and to request the Secretary General to implement
this mandate, as set forth in Article 120 of the Charter.
7.
To request the Secretary General to submit a Report before the next
regular session of the General Assembly with Proposals for human resources
management reform to the Permanent Council.
The Report should address, inter alia, the following
concerns:
a. Increasing
responsibility and accountability of staff members at all levels;
b. Building strong
leadership skills of all employees of the organization, especially those in
positions of management and supervision;
c. Providing
opportunities for the professional development of all staff members;
d.
Ensuring
strict adherence to the newly implemented performance evaluation system and
its use as a tool for strengthening professional development; and
e. Revising the current
recruitment process to require Human Resources to set up a system to refer
only the best qualified candidates for selection.
8.
To instruct the General Secretariat to issue the Personnel Register
to all member states and Department Heads on a quarterly basis and to
include statistics on average grade
and ratio of supervisors to employees for each dependency of the General
Secretariat and for the General Secretariat as a whole, together with
statistics on the distribution of staff members by fund, grade,
gender, and geographic distribution. Geographic
distribution statistics shall be computed by methods similar to those used
by other major international organizations and shall include both country of
origin and nationality.
9.
To instruct the Secretary General to strengthen the transparency and
rigor of the competition and recruitment process for long-term contracts
funded by the Regular Fund by amending the Staff Rules to provide
that:
a.
All appointments to long-terms contracts financed by the Regular Fund
shall be made by way of competition in accordance with the external
recruitment process, which shall include advertisement of the post on the
internet, timely and immediate notification of the recruitment announcement
to the Permanent Missions to the OAS, and other effective means of
publicizing the recruitment notice. Nonetheless, appointments to
reclassified posts funded by the Regular Fund and already occupied by a
qualified incumbent under a long-term contract, Continuing Contract, or
Career Service Appointment, may proceed by way of competition in accordance
with the internal recruitment process;
b.
Every candidate in a competition for a professional-level long term
contract financed by the Regular Fund who has been certified by the
Department of Human Resources Services as satisfying the minimum
requirements for the post and has been ranked among the top three candidates
by the Director who requested the recruitment shall be required to submit to
a personal or a teleconference interview by a panel of three or more
persons. The panel shall
include the Director of the Department that requested the recruitment, a
specialist from the Department of Human Resource Services, and a member of
the Advisory Committee on Selection and Promotion.
The panel shall report the interview results to the Advisory
Committee on Selection and Promotion, which shall take them into account in
its evaluation of the candidates. The
Secretariat shall not pay or otherwise reimburse candidates for their
interview-related expenses from the Regular Fund.
c.
In every phase of the recruitment process the importance of obtaining as
wide a geographic representation as possible shall be taken into account.
10.
The Following Transitional Provisions shall apply to Article 19 of
the General Standards with regard to Personnel on Continuing Contracts:
a.
For purposes only of determining eligibility for a Continuing
Contract under Section (a) of Article 19 of the General Standards and for
inclusion in the "Eligibility List" under Section (b) of that
Article, staff members in Regular Fund Posts who began service under
fixed-term contracts prior to January 1, 2000, who have been selected for a
long term contract by competition, who have more than five years of
continuous service under either long-term or short-term contracts financed
by the Regular Fund since July 1, 1997, and who as of June 30, 2002, are
serving under a long term contract financed by the Regular Fund, shall be
deemed to have satisfied the requirement for five years of continuous
service since appointment to a long-term Regular Fund contract by
competition. The reference to fixed term contracts in this provision
includes “contracts for a limited time”.
b.
For purposes only of determining the seniority of each of the staff
members covered by Paragraph (a) above for placement on the Eligibility
List, the Secretariat shall use the date which is twelve months after the
date upon which the staff member began service under his/her
first-fixed-term Regular Fund contract in the series of continuous
fixed-term Regular Fund contracts under which he/she has served continuously
for at least five years.
c. For 2002 only,
the 40% minimum Target Percentage set out in Sections (c) and (d) of Article
19 of the General Standards shall be 48%.
APPENDIX
CHAPTER III
PERSONNEL
SUBCHAPTER A: TYPES
OF PERSONNEL
Article 17. Types
of Personnel and Other Human Resources
The Human Resources of the General Secretariat include its Personnel
hired under employment contracts and Independent Contractors retained under
Performance Contracts:
a. Personnel (also
“staff members”): The
personnel of the General Secretariat shall include only the following:
i. Career
Service Personnel, appointed to the Career Service under Article 18 of the
General Standards or its predecessor provision prior to June 30, 1994, and who
were still members of the Career Service as of June 30, 2002;
ii. Personnel on
Continuing Contracts, in accordance with Article 19 of these General
Standards;
iii. Personnel on Fixed
Term Contracts, including Series A and Series B Contracts, contracted in
accordance with Article 20 of these General Standards;
iv. Trust Personnel,
appointed at the discretion of the Secretary General in accordance with
Article 21 of these General Standards;
v. Local
Professional Personnel, contracted in accordance with Article 22 of these
General Standards;
vi. Temporary support
Personnel, contracted in accordance with Article 23 of these General
Standards;
vii. Associate Personnel,
retained under an Agreement with an institution participating in programs of
common interest, in accordance with Article 24 of these General Standards.
b. Independent
Contractors: Persons contracted to provide work product or services to the
General Secretariat under a Performance Contract (also known as a “CPR”)
are independent contractors. They
are not staff members, personnel, or employees of the General
Secretariat. The Performance
Contract does not create an employment relationship between the General
Secretariat and a person.
c. Financing:
As stated in Chapter V of these General Standards, personnel are funded
under Objects 1 and 2 of the Regular Fund Program Budget. Performance contracts with Independent Contractors are funded
under Object 8 of the Regular Fund Program Budget. Contracts for Independent Contractors and for Personnel other
than those in the Career Service or under Continuing Contracts may be funded
by the Special Multilateral Fund for the Inter-American Council for Integral
Development and specific funds, subject to the special provisions governing
those funds in each case.
Article 18. Career
Service Personnel
a. Phase-out of
Career Service: The Career
Service is permanently closed and is being phased out by attrition.
It includes only those staff members who were appointed to the Career
Service under this Article of the General Standards or its predecessor
provision prior to June 30, 1994, and who were still members of the Career
Service as of June 30, 2002 (“Career Service Personnel” or “Career
Service members”). There are no
Career Service vacancies. As
current Career Service Personnel leave the service, their Career Service
designations, also known as “Career Service vacancies,” shall be
automatically eliminated and shall not be assigned to any other staff members;
b.
Special Rights of Career Service Personnel
i. The status of
the Career Service member is independent of the post, function, or tasks
performed. Consequently, without
losing his/her career status, any Career Service member shall perform any
function or task or hold any post corresponding to his/her grade to which the
Secretary General may assign to him/ her, taking into account his/her
abilities and the needs of the service.
ii. No staff member
other than those described in section “a” above, regardless of the terms
of the contract or the nature of the functions or tasks he/she is performing
or has performed, may be considered a Career Service member;
iii. Inherent in the
status of Career Service member is the right not to be separated from the
General Secretariat except on any of the grounds expressly set forth in these
General Standards.
iv. The Secretary General
shall give preferential consideration to members of the Career Service, and
other conditions being equal, to those of greatest seniority in it, to fill
vacancies and to continue in service when reductions are made in the staff of
the General Secretariat.
v. The General
Secretariat shall encourage and assist the members of the Career Service to
improve their skills and qualifications.
vi. All promotions of
Career Service personnel shall be made by competition in which the evaluation
of previous work performance in the General Secretariat shall be taken into
account. The competition shall be
subject to the provisions on selection contained in Article 44 of these
General Standards.
vii. Career Service members
shall participate in the Organization’s Retirement and Pension Plan, in
accordance with the Provisions of that Plan.
c. Salary and Other
Benefits: The salary and other emoluments of Career Service personnel
are set out in Articles 40, 48-52, and 61-62, together with the corresponding
provisions in the Staff Rules.
Article 19. Personnel
Appointed Under Continuing Contracts
a. Eligibility:
Staff members who have already been selected by competition for a post
financed by the Regular Fund and who have worked for the General Secretariat
under a fixed term contract or series of fixed term contracts for at least
five continuous years since that competition may be contracted under a
Continuing Contract, provided:
i. The staff
member has observed good conduct;
ii. The staff
member has not received any unsatisfactory performance evaluations for the
last three years and not more than one during his/her entire service with the
General Secretariat;
iii. The staff member has
passed language proficiency exams administered by the appropriate dependency
of the Secretariat for Management in at least two of the following languages:
English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish;
iv. The staff member has,
since joining the staff of the Secretariat, satisfied the training
requirements for his/her duties, and has kept his/her skills up to date as
necessary for the efficient and competent performance of those duties.
v. The contract is
to be financed in full by the Regular Fund, and based on reasonable
projections provided by the Assistant Secretariat for Management, full Regular
Fund financing for the contract is likely to continue for at least three
years; and
vi. The staff member has
requested a Continuing Contract and the Director of the area in which the
staff member is working or to which the staff member is to be assigned upon
receiving that Contract has recommended the staff member for the Contract,
based on the staff member’s skills in relation to program needs.
b. Eligibility List:
The General
Secretariat shall maintain a list of all eligible staff members by order of
seniority. The order of
seniority shall be based on length of continuous service from the date the
eligible staff member was first appointed by competition to a post under a
fixed-term contract financed by the Regular Fund.
The General Secretariat shall regularly review and modify the list to
add new eligible candidates and remove those who have since become ineligible,
and it shall provide copies of the current list to interested staff members
upon request.
c. The Target
Percentage: The Target Percentage is the percentage of staff members
employed under Career Service Appointments and Continuing Contracts in the
General Secretariat. It is
computed by dividing the number of staff members with Career Appointments and
Continuing Contracts by the entire number of staff members financed by the
Regular Fund under Articles 17(a)(i) – (iv) of these General Standards --
Career Service Personnel; Personnel on Continuing Contracts; Personnel
on Fixed Term Contracts; and Trust Personnel. The Target Percentage shall have
a range of between 40% and 50%. No
staff member shall be awarded a Continuing Contract if it will cause the
Target Percentage to exceed 50%, and the Secretariat shall maintain the Target
Percentage so that it does not fall below 40% by way of the process of
appointment described below.
d. Process of
Appointment: The following provisions shall govern the appointment
process:
i. The Secretary
General shall review the Eligibility List in April and October of each year.
If the Target Percentage at that time is below 40%, the Secretary General
shall award the number of
Continuing Contracts necessary to bring the Target Percentage back to 40%; and
if the Target Percentage at that time is below 50%, the Secretary General may
at his/her discretion award additional Continuing Contracts until the
50% Target Percentage is reached. All
those appointments shall be made by order of seniority from the Eligibility
List, and shall enter into force on the first day of the following
semester;
ii. The Secretary
General may not issue any Continuing Contracts during a Reduction in Force
mandated by the General Assembly;
iii. No staff member may
be awarded a Continuing Contract until the Advisory Committee on Selection and
Promotion established under Article 44 of these General Standards:
(a) Has conducted,
by way of the plenary or a special subcommittee of its members appointed for
this purpose, an interview of the candidate and has concluded, based on its
examination of the candidate in the interview (which may include questions
about the candidate’s work, training, contributions
to the General Secretariat to date and his/her profession), that the candidate
is suitable for a Continuing Contract; and
(b) Has certified
to the Secretary General: (i)
that the staff member currently meets the eligibility requirements in section
“a” above; (ii) that the staff member is suitable for a Continuing
Contract based on the interview described in part “a” of this section
above; (iii) that the staff member has the appropriate seniority on the
Eligibility List to receive the Contract; and (iv) that the awarding of the
Contract will not exceed the
Fifty Percent Target Ratio.
e.
Duration, Termination, and Indemnification
i. Prior to
reaching his/her sixty-fifth birthday, a staff member on a Continuing Contract
may be terminated from service by the Secretary General only for cause.
ii. A Continuing
Contract shall expire without notice or right of indemnity on the final day of
the semester in which the staff member employed under that contract reaches
his/her sixty-fifth birthday.
iii. Termination for cause
shall entitle the staff member with a Continuing Contract to sixty-days’
notice and a separation indemnity, except under those conditions under which
an indemnity is not payable under Article 62 of these General Standards.
The indemnity shall equal one month of basic salary for each year of
continuous service immediately prior to separation up to a maximum of nine
months.
f.
Mobility and Reemployment
i. A staff member
with a Continuing Contract who is transferred to or promoted to another post
in the General Secretariat fully funded by the Regular Fund shall remain
contracted under that Continuing Contract.
A staff member on a Continuing Contract who is transferred or promoted
to a post financed by non-Regular Fund sources has no right to remain under
the Continuing Contract; however, in those cases where the statutes of the
corresponding funds and the needs and resources of those funds permit the
establishment of a reserve to pay the staff member’s termination
entitlements accrued while in that post, the Secretary General may allow the
staff member to retain the Continuing Contract.
ii. A staff member
whose Continuing Contract is terminated and who is subsequently selected by
way of competition to fill a Regular Fund post in the General Secretariat may
rejoin the staff of the General Secretariat under a Continuing Contract
provided he/she had good conduct, had not received an unsatisfactory
performance evaluation while serving under a Continuing Contract, and the post
for which he/she has been selected satisfies the requirement set out in
Section a(iv) of this Article above.
iii The number of
months of basic salary of any separation indemnity paid at the termination of
a Continuing Contract shall be deducted from any separation indemnity that
staff member may otherwise be entitled to receive under any future contract
with the General Secretariat so that the staff member may not receive a total
of number of months of basic salary as termination indemnity from the General
Secretariat during his/her life-time in excess of the maximum nine months
payable under these General Standards and the Staff Rules.
iv. The amount of any
repatriation grant paid at the termination of a Continuing Contact shall be
deducted from any repatriation grant entitlement that the staff member may
otherwise have under any future contracts with the General Secretariat so that
the staff member may not receive during his/her life-time a total number of
weeks of basic salary as repatriation grant in excess of the maximum payable
under the Staff Rules in accordance with his/her dependency status.
g. Pension Rights:
Staff members on Continuing Contracts are required to join the OAS
Retirement and Pension Plan.
h. Promotion:
Staff members on Continuing Contracts may only be promoted by way of
the competitive selection process subject to the provisions on selection
contained Article 44 of these General Standards.
i. Training:
The General Secretariat shall encourage and assist the staff members on
Continuing Contracts in improving their skills and qualifications, subject to
the availability of resources allocated for that purpose in the
Program-Budget.
j. Salary and
Other Benefits: The salary and other emoluments of personnel on Continuing
Contracts are set out in Articles 40, 48-52, and 61-62, together with the
corresponding provisions in the Staff Rules.
Article 20.
Personnel Appointed Under Fixed Term Contracts
a. General
Characteristics: A fixed term contract is an employment contract for a
specific term of days, months, or years expressly stated in the contract.
It may be for a term up to five years in duration.
It expires without notice upon the termination date stated in the
contract or stated on any extension or renewal thereof.
There is no right to renewal, but it may be renewed at the discretion
of the Secretary General. It may
be terminated only for cause as stated in these General Standards and the
Staff Rules.
b. Fixed Term Contracts
may be either Series A Contracts or Series B Contracts, as further specified
below:
i. Series A
Contracts: Series A Contracts
are contracts for up to three years and under which the staff member is not
appointed through the competitive selection process in Article 44 of these
General Standards. No staff
member may serve for more than three years under one or more Series A
Contracts funded by the Regular Fund, regardless of whether the service is
non-consecutive or consecutive. Series
A Contracts also include Special Observer Contracts specifically governed by
additional limitations established under the Staff Rules and pertinent
administrative issuances of the General Secretariat.
ii. Series B
Contracts: Series B Contracts
are contracts for periods of between one and five years.
There are two types of Series B Contracts:– those financed by
the Regular Fund and those financed by funds other than the Regular Fund
(Other Funds”).
(a) Series B Contracts
Funded by the Regular Fund: Series
B Contracts funded by the Regular fund are filled by competition under Article
44 of the General Standards.
(b) Series B Contracts
Funded by Other Funds: Series
B Contracts funded by Other Funds are filled by competition, unless exempted
in those cases in which a competition is deemed inconvenient in accordance
with procedures established in the Staff Rules.
c. Salary and Other
Benefits: The salary and other emoluments of personnel on Fixed-Term
Contracts are set out in Articles 40, 48-52, and 61-62, together with the
corresponding provisions in the Staff Rules.
Staff members on Series A Contracts are ineligible for the
dependency allowance and their salary is computed under the salary scale for
staff members without dependents.
Article 21.
Trust Personnel
a. Identification of
Trust Positions The following
shall be considered positions of trust: the Executive Secretary for Integral
Development designated Director General of the IACD, as well as the Assistant
Secretaries, the advisors to the Secretary General and to the Assistant
Secretary General, and the directors and deputy directors of such departments
as the Secretary General may determine.[3]
b.
Description and Special Provisions:
i. Staff members
in positions of trust are appointed at the discretion of the Secretary General
to hold the posts that these General Standards define as positions of trust.
Trust appointments shall last as long as the Secretary General is in
office and the appointees enjoy his/her confidence.
ii The
Secretary General may appoint to a position of trust any staff member, whether
or not he/she is a member of the Career Service, or anyone outside the General
Secretariat.
iii. When the Secretary
General terminates the services of a person who holds a position of trust,
he/she shall give the person concerned the notice provided for in Article 59
of these General Standards, except in the case of a member of the Career
Service. In the latter case, the
member of the Career Service shall have the right to continue in that Service
in a post of the same grade as that of the post he held before his
appointment.
iv. Unlike other
positions of trust under this article, the appointment to the position of
Executive Secretary for Integral Development (the Director General of the
IACD) shall be for a term of four years, renewable once for a period of up to
four years and terminable only for cause, as provided under Article 12 of the
IACD Statutes. Cause shall include insubordination, failure to observe the
rules and regulations of the General Secretariat and of the IACD, failure to
perform assigned functions to the satisfaction of the Management Board, and
such other causes as are stated in these General Standards and the Staff
Rules. Such termination shall not require the convocation of a disciplinary
committee under Article 53 of the General Standards and the corresponding
Staff Rules.[4]
v. A staff member
under a Continuing Contract and who is appointed to a Position of Trust shall
maintain his/her Continuing Contract status while in the Position of Trust,
and subject to agreement with the Secretary General, may, upon the termination
of the Trust Appointment, be placed under a Continuing Contract in a non-Trust
position at the grade he/she had immediately prior to accepting the Trust
Appointment .
c. Salary
and other Benefits: The
salary and other emoluments of personnel on Trust Appointments are set out in
Articles 40, 48-52, and 61-62, together with the corresponding provisions in
the Staff Rules.
Article 22. Local
Professional Personnel
a. General
Description: Local
professional staff members are persons with professional degrees contracted as
specialists to work in accordance with the labor laws of the country in which
they provide services as determined by the Secretary General.
b. Special
Provisions, Salary and Benefits: Unless
otherwise expressly stated in these General Standards, in the document of
appointment issued pursuant to Article 25 of these General Standards, the
Staff Rules, and other administrative issuances of the Secretary General, the
benefits and rights accorded all other staff members under the General
Standards, the resolutions of the General Assembly, the Staff Rules, and other
administrative issuances of the Secretary General shall not apply to local
professional staff members;
Article 23.
Temporary Support Personnel [5]
a. General
Description: Temporary
Support Personnel who are contracted locally and to the extent feasible, in
accordance with the conditions of the duty station in which they serve, for
the sole purpose of providing support services to temporary projects, observer
missions, and other temporary activities carried out by the General
Secretariat in the Member States.[2]
b. Special
Provisions, Salary, and Benefits: Appointments
of individuals as Temporary Support Personnel ("TSP") shall be
governed by the following provisions:
i. TSPs are not
funded by Regular Fund resources; however, under exceptional circumstances as
determined by the Secretary General, they may be funded under a specific
temporary project supported in part by the Regular Fund. The General
Secretariat shall include in the amount budgeted for each TSP the necessary
reserves for all benefits required under the local laws of the duty station,
including, but not limited to, termination benefits, accumulated vacation, and
termination notice.
ii. Periods of
employment under a TSP shall not be counted for determining eligibility for
career service nor for any other purpose.
iii. TSPs shall not be
participants in the OAS Retirement and Pension Fund; however, they shall
participate in the social security system provided under the laws of the duty
station. In the event such participation is unfeasible, TSPs shall be provided
a monthly lump sum payment equal to the value of the required contributions to
the national social security system, or, alternatively, and as determined by
the Secretary General, TSPs shall participate in the Provident Plan or
other retirement-savings plans established by the General Secretariat for
temporary employees and in insurance programs provided by the General
Secretariat for temporary employees.
iv. Salaries for TSPs
shall be established in accordance with market conditions at a level no lower
than the amount paid for work of a similar nature under the corresponding
national legislation of the duty station, and no greater than the salaries
paid by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for work of a similar
nature.
v. The following
articles of the General Standards shall not apply to TSPs, unless otherwise
stated in their individual employment contracts: Article 18 (Career Service);
Article 38 (Classification of Posts); Article 40 (Salaries); Article 43
(Medical Examination); Article 44 (Selection to Fill Vacant Posts); Article 46
(Probationary Period); Article 48 (Vacations); Article 49 (Leave); Article 50
(Social Security); Article 51 (Travel, Installation, and Repatriation
expenses); Article 58 (Notice); and Article 61 (Separation Indemnity).
vi. Unless otherwise
provided by Executive Order or the express terms of the Contract Document
under which a TSP is contracted, the Staff Rules shall not apply to TSPs.
Article 24. Associate
Personnel
a. General
Description: Associate staff
members, who are persons appointed primarily to perform functions of a
professional, technical, administrative, or scientific nature, in accordance
with agreements or contracts concluded with other institutions participating
in programs of common interest, or to provide services ad honorem
with authorization of the institutions to which they belong.
Associate staff members are considered staff members solely for the
purposes of securing for them the privileges and immunities necessary for them
to carry out their functions as personnel of the General Secretariat to the
extent permitted under the corresponding agreements on privileges and
immunities with the member states and for integrating them into the
administrative structure of the project or activity to which they are
assigned. They are not staff
members for any other reason.
b. Special
Provisions, Salary, and Other Benefits:
Associate staff members are
not entitled to any of the rights and benefits of staff members set out in
these General Standards and the Staff Rules.
The terms of their relationship with the General Secretariat, including
their compensation and emoluments, shall be established exclusively in the
agreement between the institution to which they belong and the General
Secretariat.
Article 25. Document
of Appointment
At the time they are appointed or hired, staff members and the
Secretary General or his authorized representative shall jointly sign a
document that shall state the nature and conditions of the appointment or
contract. Such document
shall be in conformity with these Standards and with the applicable provisions
in force, including the resolutions of the General Assembly.
SUBCHAPTER
B:
STATUS AND OBLIGATIONS OF ALL STAFF MEMBERS AND LIMITATIONS ON THEIR
ACTIVITIES
Article 26. Subjection
to the Authority of the Secretary General
With respect to the performance of their duties,
staff members are subject to the authority of the Secretary General.
Article 27.
Status of International Civil Servants
The staff members of the General Secretariat are
international civil servants and, in the performance of their duties, are
responsible only to the General Secretariat.
In accepting appointment to a position in the General Secretariat, they
shall undertake to perform their duties and to regulate their conduct in
conformity with the nature, purposes, and interests of the Organization.
Article 28. Autonomy
in the Performance of Duties
In the performance of their duties, staff members
shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any
authority outside the Organization.
Article 29.
Limitation of Activities
Personnel shall refrain from any action that may be incompatible with
their position as staff members of the Organization.
In this regard, they may not conduct any activity that the Secretary
General considers undesirable from the standpoint of the efficient performance
of their duties or the prestige of the Organization.
Article 30. Public
Activities and Statements
Staff members shall not act or express themselves publicly in any way
that might damage or adversely affect the member states.
Article 31. Discretion
Staff members shall exercise the utmost discretion with respect to all
matters of official business. They
shall not communicate to any person any restricted information except in the
course of their duties or in accordance with the procedure for so doing
established by the Secretary General. Nor
shall they at any time use such information to private advantage.
These obligations undertaken by staff members do not cease upon
separation from service.
Article 32. Provision
of Services and Acceptance of Benefits
No
staff member shall render services to any government or entity under
conditions other than those specifically approved by the Secretary General.
No staff member may accept a decoration from any government.
Neither may he/she accept honors, awards, remuneration, favors, or
gifts when, in the opinion of the Secretary General, this is incompatible with
his status as an international civil servant or with the interests of the
Organization. No staff member shall be seconded to another international
organization, governmental agency, or other entity unless the entity to which
the staff member is seconded first agrees to reimburse the full cost of salary
and benefits of the staff member as well as any other expenses incurred by the
General Secretariat in relation to the secondment.[6]
Article 33. Nomination
for Elective Public Office
The acceptance by a staff member of nomination to an elective public
office of a political character shall imply the staff member’s resignation
from his/her post in the General Secretariat.
Article 34. Acceptance
of a Governmental Post
The acceptance by a staff member of appointment to a governmental post
shall imply his resignation from his/her post in the General
Secretariat.
Article 35.
Statement of Loyalty
Before beginning work, every staff member shall sign a statement in
which he/she undertakes to perform his/her duties in accordance with the
provisions of the Charter and of these Standards and other pertinent
provisions.
Article 36. Government
Influence and Support
No staff member may seek the influence or support of a representative
on an organ or other entity of the Organization, or of any government, in
matters affecting the administration of or discipline in the General
Secretariat. All questions
regarding these matters shall be settled in accordance with the applicable
regulations.
Article 37. Privileges
and Immunities
The privileges and immunities that should be
granted to the staff members of the General Secretariat, necessary for the
performance of their duties, shall be determined by multilateral agreements
among the member states or bilateral agreements between the General
Secretariat and the member states.
SUBCHAPTER C:
SALARIES, CLASSIFICATION, AND EVALUATION
Article 38. Classification
of Posts.
The Secretary General shall issue the administrative provisions for the
classification of posts in the professional and general services categories in
accordance with the resolutions of the General Assembly and the nature of the
pertinent duties and responsibilities. The
Secretary General shall include in the proposed program-budget the necessary
funds for an audit of classifications of all posts, which shall be conducted
at least once every four or six years and completed no later than six months
prior to the Preparatory Committee's review of the proposed program-budget for
the following fiscal period.
Article 39. Work
Performance Evaluation.
Staff members’ work performance shall be evaluated periodically.
Accordingly, the Secretary General shall issue regulations for an
evaluation system pursuant to the provisions of Article 120 of the Charter,
which provide for:
a. Evaluation of the
staff at least once a year;
b. The manner of
conducting the evaluation process and its stages;
c. The guarantees for
the staff subject to evaluation; and
d. The consequences of
the evaluation process.
Article 40. Salaries
a. The salaries in force
for the staff of the General Secretariat shall be the salaries in force at the
United Nations Secretariat, to the ext
