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Facilities (530,-666)

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Keywords: Facilities
Total judgments found: 12

  • Judgment 4458


    133rd Session, 2022
    United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
    Summary: The complainant seeks the setting aside of the information circular which, according to her, announced the closure of the UNESCO Commissary.

    Considerations 7 and 10

    Extract:

    The Commissary – which in 1958 lost its previous status, granted in 1949, as a cooperative society – was undoubtedly an integral part of the UNESCO Secretariat, and the aforementioned provisions in its regard appeared in the Administrative Manual until they were removed by the contested circular. However, in the absence of any reference to this facility in the employment contracts of UNESCO officials or the provisions of the Staff Regulations, this does not imply that entitlement to use the Commissary’s services may be regarded as a term of employment the alteration of which can be challenged before the Tribunal.
    [...]
    Lastly, the Tribunal observes that it is unsurprising that access to the UNESCO Commissary is not one of the benefits granted to staff members listed in their employment contracts or the Staff Regulations. Indeed, from the time of its creation, and despite the fact that this occurred against the backdrop of the consumer goods shortage prevailing in France at the time owing to the economic devastation wreaked by the Second World War, entitlement to use the Commissary’s services was not conceived as a term of employment of UNESCO staff but merely as a facility offered with a view to enabling them – in the words of the resolution adopted by the General Conference in September 1947 on this matter – to “improve [their] living conditions” by obtaining items necessary for their “personal comfort”. In the decades that followed, and until the closure of the Commissary, the fact that it existed merely as a facility became all the more obvious as the supply problems that had originally justified its establishment disappeared. It should also be noted that the opportunity to join the Commissary was not restricted to serving UNESCO staff members, since it was also open, inter alia, to former UNESCO staff members, members and staff of permanent delegations to UNESCO and officials of the United Nations and specialised agencies assigned to Paris, which confirms that this benefit was not conceived as a term of employment attaching to the status of UNESCO staff member.

    Keywords:

    conditions of service; contract; facilities;

    Consideration 6

    Extract:

    [T]he contested measure affects the complainant not in her capacity as a former official of UNESCO, but in her – legally distinct – capacity as a member of the Commissary. The complainant herself makes this clear in her complaint by submitting that the decision to end the Commissary’s activity “directly breaches [her] entitlements as a member of the Commissary”, and the nature of the arguments raised in her submissions confirms that she intends to file a complaint with the Tribunal in that capacity.
    However, the opportunity to use the services of the Commissary, which was merely a facility offered to UNESCO staff members – and indeed to other categories of persons [...] – was not covered by the provisions of the complainant’s employment contract when she retired nor by the provisions of the Organization’s Staff Regulations [...].

    Keywords:

    competence; facilities; locus standi; ratione materiae; status of complainant;

    Consideration 8

    Extract:

    [I]t should be noted that, although the opportunity to purchase consumer goods free of duty or tax was plainly financially advantageous to the officials who joined the Commissary, it cannot be regarded as part of their remuneration. As the Tribunal has already held, the benefits of access to a commissary cannot be so classified, since they result from a tax privilege granted directly to the officials concerned by the host country and not from an expense borne by the organisation concerned (see Judgments 1000, consideration 16, and 1001, consideration 16).

    Reference(s)

    ILOAT Judgment(s): 1000, 1001

    Keywords:

    facilities; host state; salary;

    Judgment keywords

    Keywords:

    competence of tribunal; complaint dismissed; facilities; general decision; ratione materiae;



  • Judgment 3258


    116th Session, 2014
    International Telecommunication Union
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
    Summary: The complainants argued that their rights of staff representatives had been violated, but their claim for pecuniary compensation was dismissed by the Tribunal.

    Judgment keywords

    Keywords:

    collective rights; complaint dismissed; facilities; lack of injury;



  • Judgment 3156


    114th Session, 2013
    International Telecommunication Union
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
    Summary: The complainants, who are former staff representatives, unsuccessfully challenge decisions which, in their view, constituted violations of the right of staff representation.

    Consideration 16

    Extract:

    "Since organisations must prevent [any] abuse of the right of free speech [enjoyed by bodies representing the staff], the Tribunal’s case law does not absolutely prohibit the putting in place of a mechanism for the prior authorisation of messages circulated by [such] bodies [...]. An organisation acts unlawfully only if the conditions for implementing this mechanism in practice lead to a breach of that right, for example by an unjustified refusal to circulate a particular message."

    Keywords:

    bias; breach; collective rights; condition; facilities; flaw; freedom of speech; judicial review; limits; organisation's interest; refusal; right; staff representative; staff union;



  • Judgment 2926


    109th Session, 2010
    International Labour Organization
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Considerations 7 and 9

    Extract:

    The complainant worked for the ILO Staff Union from 2 August to 31 December 2004 under a special short-term contract. Subsequently, he continued to make his services available to the Staff Union without any written contract. He asks the Tribunal to find that he has been an ILO official since August 2004.
    "The Tribunal considers [...] that the fact that the complainant continued to make his services available to the Staff Union in the absence of any contract, that he was given access to the material facilities which the Office provides for the Staff Union, and that performance appraisal reports were drawn up for him could not confer on him a status that had not been granted by a formal administrative document. It follows that when he filed his complaint with the Tribunal, he was not in a position to invoke the status of an official bound to the Organization by a contract concluded in accordance with the rules in force. [...] It follows that the complainant, since he lacks the status of an ILO official, has no access to the Tribunal, which must decline jurisdiction and dismiss the complaint."

    Keywords:

    competence of tribunal; contract; effect; facilities; formal requirements; no provision; non official; performance report; short-term; staff union; status of complainant; written rule;



  • Judgment 2783


    106th Session, 2009
    International Atomic Energy Agency
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Considerations 12-14

    Extract:

    The complainant, who parks his car in the Vienna International Centre (VIC), is challenging the decision to double the monthly parking fee effective 1 January 2007.
    "In the present case, the impugned decision affects the complainant not as a staff member of the Agency but in his capacity as a user of the VIC garage. Moreover, the financial conditions governing the use of this garage, which is merely a facility offered to the staff of the various international organisations occupying the VIC, do not form part of the complainant's terms of appointment or of the Agency's Staff Regulations.
    'While the payment of the fee for the use of the garage does in fact take the form of a direct deduction from the Agency's staff members' salaries, this is simply a means of payment adopted for convenience sake, which does not in any way alter the nature of the fee and does not, in particular, have the effect of incorporating it into the complainant's terms of employment. In this respect, the deduction is comparable to those which an employer may effect from an employee's wages for the purpose of paying, for example, a tax or contribution that is levied at source; here too, the fact that the tax or contribution is so deducted does not afford grounds for considering it to be part of the employee's terms of employment.
    This dispute does not therefore fall within the scope of the [...] provisions of Article II, paragraph 5, of the Statute of the Tribunal."

    Reference(s)

    ILOAT reference: Article II, paragraph 5, of the Statute

    Keywords:

    amendment to the rules; amount; competence of tribunal; condition; contract; deduction; effect; facilities; iloat statute; increase; official; payment; provision; salary; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant; tax; terms of appointment;



  • Judgment 2228


    95th Session, 2003
    European Patent Organisation
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 11

    Extract:

    The Staff Committee, which is a statutory body of the organisation, made the facilities derived from its access to the organisation's internal electronic mail system available to the Staff Union. Its access to the system was withdrawn. "The organisation [submits that] the facilities offered to the Staff Committee cannot be made available to the Staff Union without creating confusion with regard to the attribution of roles and responsibilities, even if those in charge of one of these bodies are also, or may be, in charge of the other. This does not mean to say that the unions should not be provided with certain facilities by the organisations. On the contrary, their freedom of expression should not be hampered, as indicated by the Tribunal in Judgment 1547, [...] and unions must clearly be provided with sufficient facilities, within the framework of negotiated agreements or, if need be, administrative regulations, to enable them to carry on their activities. It is legitimate, however, for the organisation to ensure that the facilities made available to a body officially representing the staff as a whole are not misused for the benefit of a union, or any other body having its own assets and representing only part of the staff."

    Reference(s)

    ILOAT Judgment(s): 1547

    Keywords:

    administrative instruction; case law; collective bargaining; facilities; freedom of speech; grounds; liability; limits; organisation's duties; purpose; refusal; staff representative; staff union; staff union activity; staff union agreement; written rule;

    Consideration 11

    Extract:

    The Staff Committee's access to the organisation's internal electronic mail system was withdrawn after the organisation made an objection on technical grounds following the mass distribution of documents. "The Staff Committee is responsible for [...] maintaining "suitable contacts between the competent administrative authorities and the staff", which necessarily implies the availability of adequate means of communication within the organisation... Nevertheless, the incident mentioned by the [organisation] involving the mass distribution of a union report [...] shows that some degree of control is necessary, without jeopardising the Staff Committee's freedom of expression and speech."

    Keywords:

    acceptance; consequence; facilities; freedom of speech; liability; official; organisation; publication; purpose; rebuttal; refusal; report; staff union;



  • Judgment 1547


    81st Session, 1996
    European Patent Organisation
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Considerations 12-14

    Extract:

    "The EPO had no formal agreement with the union about facilities such as the distribution of a summons to a meeting. But it admitted to the Appeals Committee that its consistent practice since 1992 had been to distribute any unsealed unofficial internal mail, whether private or not, save any text containing a personal attack on someone. Was such usage binding in law? [...] The plain expectation of the staff was that the EPO would deliver notices from their union without let or hindrance." Therefore the complaints succeed.

    Keywords:

    binding character; discretion; facilities; flaw; freedom of association; freedom of speech; judicial review; limits; organisation's duties; practice; staff union; staff union activity;

    Consideration 8

    Extract:

    "Precedent has it that an organisation has some latitude in affording facilities to a staff union and its decisions are not subject to judicial review. That is not so, however, where it is charged with breach of freedom of association. The Tribunal will indeed interfere if the effect of the impugned decision is to hamper the freedom of speech that any union must enjoy. Refusal to deliver invitations to a union meeting is unquestionably a breach of the privacy of mail and of the freedom of speech that is part and parcel of freedom of association."

    Keywords:

    case law; discretion; facilities; flaw; freedom of association; freedom of speech; judicial review; limits; staff union; staff union activity;



  • Judgment 1542


    81st Session, 1996
    European Patent Organisation
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 5

    Extract:

    "This complaint, which seeks the grant of staff union facilities [...], does concern the exercise of the freedom of association that Article 30 of the Service Regulations guarantees. So the Tribunal is competent ratione materiae under Article II(5) and (6)(a) of its Statute, whereby it is open to any official - even one whose employment has ceased - who alleges breach in substance or in form of the Staff Regulations."

    Reference(s)

    ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II (5) AND (6)(A) OF THE STATUTE
    Organization rules reference: ARTICLE 30 OF THE EPO SERVICE REGULATIONS

    Keywords:

    competence of tribunal; complainant; complaint; facilities; freedom of association; iloat statute; locus standi; receivability of the complaint; staff regulations and rules; staff representative; staff union; staff union activity; status of complainant; vested competence;



  • Judgment 911


    64th Session, 1988
    United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 17

    Extract:

    "The grant of facilities to a staff association is not a privilege the organization may withdraw as it pleases. The reason why it grants them is not just goodness of heart but its own broad interest in having the association perform its responsibilities fully and efficiently. Thus it is the organization's own interest that decrees the grant of facilities and, conversely, they may not be withdrawn entirely or in part unless that interest so requires. Such are the principles the Tribunal applied in Judgment 496 and others and will apply to this case."

    Reference(s)

    ILOAT Judgment(s): 496

    Keywords:

    facilities; organisation's interest; staff union;

    Consideration 17

    Extract:

    "Although, as UNESCO says and indeed the Tribunal has held, facilities are not a matter for negotiation or agreement and although no obligation attaches to the actual outcome of consultations, one of an executive head's duties is to consult the staff association in keeping with [...] general principles [...] reflected in Chapter VIII [of the Staff Regulations]."

    Reference(s)

    Organization rules reference: CHAPTER VIII OF THE UNESCO STAFF REGULATIONS

    Keywords:

    consultation; enforcement; facilities; general principle; organisation's duties; staff regulations and rules; staff union;

    Consideration 10

    Extract:

    "In denying the association its customary privilege of having a text printed and issued, the organization infringed its rights as representative and defender of the staff's interests. The impugned decision cannot stand."

    Keywords:

    discontinuance; facilities; freedom of association; publication; staff union;



  • Judgment 496


    48th Session, 1982
    Pan American Health Organization
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 36

    Extract:

    "It is enough to say that the absence of any evidence supporting the decision creates the suspicion that it was taken with improper motives and that such a suspicion is amply confirmed by consideration of the events leading up to it [...] The director wished to get rid of a [staff] committee which he believed to be unrepresentative. [...] The decision [...] can only be viewed either as an attempt to use coercion where persuasion had failed or as an expression of resentment at the failure. as such it is an abuse of power."

    Keywords:

    abuse of power; amendment to the rules; facilities; grounds; misuse of authority; staff union;

    Consideration 17

    Extract:

    The grant of facilities to the staff association is not a privilege which can be withdrawn at will. "The organization does not provide facilities purely out of benevolence but because it is in the interests of the organization that the functions which the association discharges should be fully and competently performed. Facilities should be granted only when it is in the interests of the organization that they should be; likewise, they should be withdrawn, wholly or in part, only when the withdrawal is in the interests of the organization."

    Keywords:

    facilities; organisation's interest; staff union;

    Consideration 34

    Extract:

    Within the limits determined by the organization's interests, "the Director has the widest discretion in determining the extent of the facilities which the organization offers to the staff association and in making from time to time such changes in them as he thinks to be desirable. Changes do not have to be negotiated and agreed [...]. [The Director] may not, as is the rule in all his decisions, act without taking all the relevant facts into consideration and he can hardly do that without ascertaining the views of the staff association. But after these have been considered, the decision is for him alone."

    Keywords:

    abuse of power; amendment to the rules; consultation; facilities; misuse of authority; organisation's duties; staff union;

    Summary

    Extract:

    The Tribunal recognises the Director's right to alter the scope of the facilities extended to the staff association. However it reserves the right to set aside any modifications which have not been properly justified. It considers as unjustified the imposition on the staff association of the requirement that communications to be despatched through the organization's facilities should first be submitted to the administration. Furthermore, it considers as a violation of the right to freedom of association the cut in the organization's contribution to the expenses of the association.

    Keywords:

    amendment to the rules; discontinuance; discretion; facilities; freedom of association; grounds; judicial review; staff union;

    Consideration 6

    Extract:

    The Staff Rules give effect to the principle of freedom of association by providing inter alia "that staff associations shall have the right to request their membership for [...] financial contributions; and that the [organization] may give financial assistance to any such association in the furtherance of activities beneficial to the staff provided that the membership of the association also contributes substantially to such activity."

    Keywords:

    contributions; facilities; freedom of association; staff union;



  • Judgment 403


    43rd Session, 1980
    Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 3

    Extract:

    "What is not described in the regulations are the facilities which, because of the administration's interest in the efficient working of the staff association, it is now customary for the administration to guarantee or provide. The most important of these is permission for the chairman and other officers of the association to take 'time off' within reasonable limits for the association's work." There are others: the provision of office space, the collection of subscriptions to the association (by deduction with the member's consent of dues from pay).

    Keywords:

    facilities; freedom of association; no provision; practice; staff union; time off;



  • Judgment 54


    9th Session, 1961
    United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
    Extracts: EN, FR
    Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

    Consideration 6

    Extract:

    A trade union official should enjoy freedom of action and expression on the condition that he respect the obligations incumbent upon him as an official of the organization and those incumbent upon international officials generally; he should be allowed reasonable time for discharging his functions. "Any decision affecting an official which does not take these rights into account - and, in particular, any measure motivated solely by "any activity carried out by him in that capacity while respecting the obligations enumerated above - would be tainted by an error in law."

    Keywords:

    facilities; freedom of association; organisation's duties; staff member's duties; staff representative; staff union activity; time off;


 
Last updated: 12.04.2024 ^ top