Coordinators: Laurence Dubois, Guillaume Filhon

Members: Séverine Deboos, Clara Van Panhuys (Committee members) and over 50 TC members from the field and headquarters  

Conditions of employment of staff with technical cooperation contracts

Objective: To promote equal treatment of all staff on technical cooperation contracts (TC staff) – including PSI – (“Development Cooperation” according to terminology used by the ILO Administration) and regular budget staff in ongoing or future negotiations with the Administration, in order to give effect to the vision of “One ILO“. Defend the equal rights of staff performing equivalent functions, and promote equal pay before the ILO Administration, in keeping with the spirit of ILO Convention No. 111 condemning all forms of discrimination between workers, in compliance with ILOAT jurisprudence, which considers it to be a fundamental principle of the context of work for civil servants. Promote the views of and ensure a continuous career development path for staff on TC contracts.

These objectives are in line with the conclusions of the 2020 report by the working group on technical cooperation.

Priority areas include: 

• Safeguarding existing job security by dealing with issues such as the potential reduction of technical cooperation budgets, developing proposed priority action plans for persons already on a post, paying particular attention to TC staff with seniority, particularly those who have accomplished 10 years of service at the ILO.
• Taking into account staff seniority, particularly with regard to application of the same rights and general guarantees for TC+5s as those granted to regular budget staff, including recruitment, selection, and redeployment processes.
• Guaranteeing that staff, especially TC staff, are treated with respect, focusing on three main elements:
• The strictest respect for already existing rights and guarantees for technical cooperation contracts, independent of budgetary justifications (budgetary limits should not be used, for example, to justify that staff should pay for their own security arrangements or those of their family or to justify the non-respect of mandatory notice periods in case of renewal or non-renewal).
• Identification of rights and guarantees that do not yet apply to TC staff. Promotion of identical treatment and application of the same rights to TC staff as regular budget staff, taking into account seniority (in-post promotion, merit, training, severance pay, family support, applications for ILO job openings).
• Development of proposals to enable better safeguards for contracts in order to ensure career development at the ILO, with the implementation of tools that facilitate recruitment and redeployment of technical cooperation staff in jobs corresponding to their skills.

Means of action

• Conduct a survey of colleagues to increase understanding of experienced or perceived challenges and inequalities and to:
• strengthen the analysis of the typical cases identified by the TC working group
• feed into negotiations with the administration, in particular in the context of a new contract policy.
• Maintain close collaboration with staff on technical cooperation contracts, notably through meetings of the TC group organized every two months.
• Strengthen communication and information to staff on their rights and guarantees, in order to raise awareness of the often-unknown challenges and inequalities faced by colleagues, in particular through the finalization and wide distribution of leaflets presenting the Staff Union’s action for TC staff.
• Strengthen information and the defence of staff rights through the systematic support of the Staff Union’s legal counsel on request.