Communiqués

The Joint Negotiating Committee reaches agreement on a new system for conflict prevention and resolution

Geneva, 16 March 2004

The Joint Negotiating Committee has recently reached an agreement on a new text of a collective agreement on Conflict prevention and resolution, as foreseen in the two agreements that it replaces, the Collective agreement on a procedure for the resolution of grievances (signed in September 2000) and the Collective agreement on a procedure for harassment-related grievance (February 2001). These agreements embodied an automatic provision for review two years after entering into force. The new agreement contemplates a number of changes to the current procedure aiming at making the internal mechanism for dispute prevention and resolution fast and more effective then the one currently in place. For the first time, the matching changes in staff rules and required circulars were negotiated at the same time, thus avoiding in future conflicts of interpretation among various levels of legal instruments.

Negotiations, which started in the last month of July 2003, were preceded by a wide process of consultation both in Headquarters and in the Field which showed a high degree of dissatisfaction. The consultation sought to obtain the views of those who knew the system best, namely the users, the members of the Joint Panel, the Office of the Ombudsperson; questionnaires were sent to all union shop stewards in Geneva and the Regions and a number of legal advisers interviewed. The process of consultation gave the representatives of the Staff Union an in-depth view of the functioning of the system in practice, the problems it was encountering and helped identify potential solutions to these problems. Criticism mainly centered on the slowness, inefficiency, low impact, and non-use of the internal system by the Field structure.

The new collective agreement, which should be read together with the annexes, has been negotiated with the objective to overcome these problems and at establishing simpler and faster procedures. The main differences with the system currently in place are:

• More focus on dispute prevention, with the provision of training to managers and staff, periodic reports, and the promotion of policies and strategies aimed at preventing grievances;

• Strengthening of the informal mechanisms: facilitation, mediation or third party assistance will be options available to all officials, both in Headquarters and the Field, and used on a voluntary basis;

• The Ombusperson, the new Mediator, will no longer carry out harassment related investigative functions which was not compatible with mediation; mediation will be made available if the parties so decide throughout the whole formal process of disputes resolution;

• The parties to the grievance: the Administration will be responsible to ensure respect for the terms and conditions of employment and to ensure a harassment-free workplace; an administrative decision will be needed to recur to the internal system; this ensures coherence with the procedures set in the ILOAT;

• Two separate procedures: a general procedure for grievances related to terms and conditions of employment, and a faster separate procedure for sexual-harassment related grievances; the latter envisages independent investigation at the request of the official if the Administration fails to take appropriate measures or if no measures are taken; report to be send directly to the DG for decision;

• The sexual harassment grievance procedure will be extended to job applicants, interns and any other person with a contractual relationship with the Office;

• Moral harrassment: The experience has shown that this type of harrassment was virtually impossible to prove. When a specific procedure was being used, the official concerned had, if harrassment could be proved, to run through all the procedure again, on the basis of "unfair treatment". Moral harrassment cases will therefore henceforth be treated under general grievance procedures.

• Reform of the Joint Panel: it will be replaced by the Joint Appeals Advisory Board (JAAB), with similar but more specific functions and same composition, with the exception of the Presidency, that will rely on a former ILO Official or serving or former officials of the United Nations system;

• The JAAB will be composed by a number of panels that will be able to function simultaneously, and therefore increasing rapidity; the JAAB will be able to decide whether a case needs urgent treatment;

• No external legal representation in internal processes: experience has shown that external representation has contributed to making the process slow, costly and inefficient and, often, with no interest in solving the cases at this stage of the process; internal legal assistance is envisaged as long as it is provided by an ILO official, a former ILO official or a union representative; legal advice will be made available by the Union free of cost to all ILO officials who request it. No change concerning representation when cases come to the ILOAT.

The agreement will be submitted to the Governing Body in is current 289th session and progressively implemented in the forthcoming months. The Union will inform ILO Staff extensively about new procedures, both in Headquarters and the Field, starting with the next session of the "First Tuesday of the month". Users' guides and manuals are also foreseen.

The Staff Union Committee is convinced that the new agreement will improve the deteriorated labour relations in the ILO and will provide adequate response to the expectations of the Staff. The Staff Union counts on your contribution to make the system work efficiently.

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