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SECOND SPECIAL ASSEMBLY OF THE OAS STAFF
ASSOCIATION
IN PERMANENT SESSION
The Staff Committee, through
its President, convened the second special assembly of the OAS Staff
Association in permanent session for 9:15 a.m., March 7, 2005, in the
Cafeteria of the F Street building.
This assembly was convened
on the basis of the letter delivered to the Acting Secretary General on
February 24, 2005, and distributed in the Association's Staff News bulletin
SN-37/04-05 of March 4, 2005. The letter raised various staff concerns
elicited by two directives issued in two memorandums: by the Office of
Human Resource Services (Policy for Filling Vacant Posts) and the
Department of Administration and Finance (Budget Guidelines for 2006).
Those documents could be interpreted as an invitation to downgrade post
classifications, in the first case, and, in the second, as pointing to a
staff reduction, involving a reduction in force, to be carried out no later
than April 1, 2005.
The Vice President said we
were in a unique situation, resulting from the Executive Order left us by
Secretary General Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. He noted that, for us, as the
Committee, it was important to communicate to the staff where we were, and
to ascertain the possibilities of a reduction in force and whether it might
be large or small.
The President then welcomed
the Acting Secretary General, who spoke to the staff as follows. He
recalled that, when last speaking to the staff, he had indicated that we
were undergoing a reform process. Then the work had been done on Executive
Order 05-03 of January 25, 2005. His reaction to the new Executive Order
was that the restructuring was now complete and was working well. He had
decided to leave things as they were until the arrival of the new Secretary
General, with the exception of a couple of appointments; one was that of
Frank Almaguer, replacing James Harding as Director of Administration and
Finance. The role of the OAS is more relevant now than ever. He had had to
make some decisions in order for staff to be paid at the end of the month.
Referring to the proposed 2006 budget, he said it had been a big challenge,
and he had tried to minimize the damage to current OAS staff. He had not
wanted to get into closing offices arbitrarily, or to continue the policy
of cutting equally across the board; the latter seemed unfair to him, since
some areas were harmed more than others. He had decided not to take any
drastic decisions, and to demonstrate a sense of order, priorities, and
values. He said the member states would have the last word. In order not to
exceed the budgetary ceiling, it had been necessary to reduce the number of
posts by 22. The decision to take these measures was against his nature.
Most of the posts eliminated were vacant; however, five or six occupied
posts would have to be cut. To soften this blow, a voluntary retirement
program would be offered. Finally, referring to the Rodríguez plan, he said
it had been carried out only in part, since the plan had been to compress
not only high-level posts but also those of the rest of the staff. The
future would depend on the member states, the revision of their quotas, and
the payment of those quotas.
The President thanked
Ambassador Einaudi for accepting the Committee's invitation to speak to the
staff and then invited the Director of the Department of Legal Affairs and
Services to answer any questions posed by the staff. Mr. Berenson started
by saying that only five posts were being cut, and that these might
possibly be replaced by posts vacated through voluntary retirement.
Referring to a matter of confusion about continuing contracts, he indicated
that these were renewed automatically each year, and that the incumbent was
guaranteed an indemnity if such a post was eliminated. He clarified,
however, that persons with continuing contracts did not have the bumping
rights held by members of the career service.
One staff member said that
the "Rodríguez plan" should not be given that nickname, since all the
member states had accepted it. He recalled that, when the staff had
accepted parity, this had been accomplished through a referendum, and that
if posts now began to be downgraded without an audit, we would no longer
have parity with the United Nations. Referring to the process of
competitions for continuing contracts, he said that the list of eligible
persons, which should have been published, had not yet been issued.
The Director of the
Department of Legal Affairs and Services chose to reply to the second
question first, by saying that he knew the list was about to be released.
As for the competition, he said the percentage of posts approved for that
competition had not fallen below the required threshold of 40%.
On the subject of
compression, he recognized that this had been carried out at the higher
grades; as for the lower grades, he believed it had been suspended for
review. On the matter of P-5 office directors supervising P-5 specialists,
this was not such a crazy thing; in fact, it was a practice of the United
States Government; he was confident that it was allowed under the United
Nations classification system. Post descriptions had not been corrected,
but things were moving in that direction.
The new Director of the
Department of Administration and Finance, Ambassador Frank Almaguer, then
took the floor. He said he was happily impressed with the competence of the
OAS staff. He added that this was an Organization with a serious financial
crisis. The work of the OAS was vital to the Hemisphere, and he thought the
member states would not make decisions that would weaken the Organization.
For his part, he assured the staff that, as long as he served as director,
he wanted to do his job with a "human face," and transparently. The
budgeting process had given him a very clear view of the Organization.
Lastly, he said his doors would always be open to the staff.
Another staff member
referred to the letter that had been sent to the Acting Secretary General
on the downgrading of posts--which, though hypothetical, she said, was
possible. She added that such a downgrading, if implemented, would be the
end of U.N. parity. She requested that, on the basis of that hypothesis,
the topic be discussed with a legal representative-an attorney. The
President replied that the Committee had already contacted Robert Wallace,
an attorney who had defended the staff on other occasions.
The meeting was called to a
close at 10:45 a.m.
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