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Staff Salaries in the UN Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

A. Loveday
Affiliation:
Director of the Economic, Financial and Transit Department of the League of Nations and later Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, is the author of a number of articles on international cooperation and of the recently published book, Reflections on International Administration.
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Extract

The salaries of international officials have again been under discussion in the General Assembly and, as the discussion is to continue during the twelfth session, this would seem to be an appropriate moment to review the situation. The eleventh Assembly had before it the report of a special committee requested to undertake “a comprehensive review of the United Nations salary, allowance and benefits system”. Although this report was praised in the debate, the Staff Council expressed the view that its “principal conclusions and recommendations are profoundly disappointing”. The committee, known as the Salary Review Committee (SRC), did not confine itself to salaries and allowances, but quite naturally dealt also with such questions as grading, recruitment and, to some extent, with pensions. Since Dr. R. N. Swift, in a recent article on personnel problems in this journal, has devoted sections to recruitment and salaries in the UN, I do not propose to consider recruitment policies, but to discuss the inter-related problems of salaries, grading and pensions in the wider setting of the whole UN family of international organizations.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1957

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References

1 Document A/3209.

2 General Assembly Resolution 975 (X).

3 Document A/C. 5/691/Add.1.

4 See International Organization, XI, p. 228–241.

5 Converted from Swiss francs into dollars at 23 cents.

6 He receives also a non-pensionable allowance of $3,500. See p. 645 below.

7 In the table I have treated the present P.5 grade as equivalent to the chief of section in 1939. The status and functions of P.5 officials differ from one organization to another and no general comparison can be exact. The procedure adopted tends to exaggerate somewhat their importance. On the other hand, the normal responsibilities of a junior director-chief of division in the International Labor Organization (ILO) are more extensive than those of a prewar chief of section.

8 There was, however, a ceiling of SW. frs. 25,000 ($5,750) on pensions.

9 They were lower for those away from headquarters.

10 Document A/3209, para. 190.

11 ILO, UNESCO, WHO, ICAO, and FAO.

12 Document A/C. 5/691, para. 15.

13 Ibid., para. 60.

14 Ibid.

15 It is not possible to expound this crucial psychological issue adequately in the space available. It is developed more fully in Loveday, A., Reflections on International Administration, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956, Chapter VGoogle Scholar.

16 Document 3209, para. 15. XXVII.

17 There is also a $500 cost-of-living allowance and a representation fund of $50,000, which may be drawn on with the permission of the Secretary-General.

18 Document A/2554, para. 23.

19 Document A/C.5/691, para. 116.

20 Ibid., para. 26.