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By Brett Schaefer
The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) is currently
meeting to recommend changes to the salaries and benefits for more than
80,000 United Nations employees and 14 other organizations participating
in the United Nations common system.
[1]
The ICSC calculates that U.N. employees in the professional and higher
grades in New York earn a net remuneration (take-home salary) that
averages 29.5 percent higher than that of equivalent U.S. civil servant
grades in Washington, D.C. Moreover, U.N. employees enjoy benefits that
in many cases exceed those of U.S. civil servants.
The financial implications of these lavish salaries and benefits
are significant for the member states that pay for the budgets of these
organizations, since the large majority of these budgets are dedicated
to salaries and benefits. As the largest contributor to the U.N. system,
the U.S. should work with the other member states to immediately freeze
U.N. salaries until they are equivalent to that of the U.S. civil
service.
U.N. Compensation
The U.N. is comprised of 193 member states and is specifically
charged by the U.N. charter to give “paramount consideration” in hiring
staff to “the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity”
while giving due regard to “the importance of recruiting the staff on
as wide a geographical basis as possible.” This presented a challenge to
the U.N. when it was founded, because compensation varies greatly
between member states.
When the U.N.’s predecessor, the League of Nations, grappled with the issue, it established the Noblemaire Committee,
[2]
named after its chair, which recommended the adoption of a compensation
system equal to that of the British Empire—the highest paid civil
service in the world at the time—because “if lower salaries had been
offered, it would be impossible to obtain the services of Britishers of
the required standing.… On the other hand, it would be difficult…to pay
lower salaries for the same work to members of other nationalities.”
[3]
This practice, known as the Noblemaire principle, was inherited
by the U.N. and requires professional staff salaries to be determined by
comparison to those of the civil service of the member state with the
highest civil service pay levels. Since the U.N. was founded, this has
been the U.S.
Complicating matters is that U.N. professional categories do not
line up with U.S. civil service grades. The ICSC calculates
equivalencies between the two as a basis for determining compensation—a
process that inevitably involves subjective judgment. The ICSC itself
reports that U.N. compensation significantly exceeds that of the U.S.
equivalent. Specifically, the seven U.N. professional categories in New
York receive net remuneration
[4] between 27.7 percent and 40.4 percent higher than the net remuneration of U.S. federal employees based in Washington, D.C.
[5]
On average, weighting for the number of U.N. employees in each
category, U.N. net remuneration is 29.5 percent higher than that of
their U.S. equivalent. The most numerous U.N. professional grade (called
“P-4”) earned an average take-home salary in 2011 of $133,225, versus
$104,353 for the U.S. equivalent.
[6]
The ICSC calculates the cost-of-living differential between
Washington and New York to be 12.7 percent. After applying this
adjustment and weighting for the number of U.N. employees in each
category, the ICSC calculates that U.N. net remuneration is 14.9 percent
higher than the U.S.
equivalent. However, the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management calculates the locality pay differential in New York as only
3.6 percent. Using this 3.6 percent differential reveals that net
remuneration for U.N. staff in New York is actually 25 percent higher
than the U.S. equivalent even after adjusting for location.
Additionally, the U.N. applies the Noblemaire principle
selectively to benefit U.N. staff. While the U.S. instituted a pay
freeze for federal workers in 2011 and 2012, the U.N. approved a salary
increase of nearly 3 percent last year.
[7]
U.N. Benefits
The U.N. asserts that the pay discrepancy is necessary in order
to compensate for “specific elements relating to expatriate service.”
[8]
But it is unclear why a premium above U.S. civil service salaries, the
highest of any member state, is required. Indeed, U.N. net remuneration
does not include the additional, incredibly generous benefits and
allowances enjoyed by U.N. staff—many of which are specifically targeted
to alleviate the challenges of expatriate service including:
[9]
- A rental subsidy of up to 80 percent of rent above a specified threshold.
- Higher salaries and allowances for U.N. employees with dependents.
- A dependant child allowance (under 18 or under 21 if attending
school full-time) of $2,929, a secondary dependant allowance (sibling
or parent) of $1,025, and enhanced allowances for disabled dependants.
- Education grants for staff serving outside their home country
amounting to 75 percent of tuition, up to $32,255 per annum, payable
through the fourth year of college up to the age of 25, and up to 100
percent reimbursement for boarding school for primary and secondary
students.
- Travel expenses relating to the initial appointment, change of
duty stations, family visitation separation of service, and home leave
travel. Staff posted outside their home country are provided with paid
travel to their home countries for themselves and their families
biennially.
- A daily subsistence allowance during business travel and a half-rate daily subsistence allowance for traveling family members.
- Hardship and danger allowances for duty stations with
difficult living conditions that can reach thousands of dollars each
month.
- A mobility allowance when moved between duty stations, and
paid expenses for shipping household goods and, in some cases, partial
payment for shipping automobiles.
- Annual vacation of 30 days, 10 official holidays, 16 weeks of
paid maternity leave, and four to eight weeks of paid paternity leave.
Many of these benefits exceed those provided by the U.S. federal
government—in some cases, significantly. The extent of U.N. compensation
is further illustrated by studies indicating that U.S. federal
employees on average earn significantly more in salary and benefits than
equivalently skilled U.S. private-sector workers.
[10]
The Need to Rein in U.N. Compensation
Under the Noblemaire principle, the U.N. is supposed to base its
compensation on that of the U.S. civil service. In reality, the U.N.
provides more lavish salaries and benefits than those of equivalent
American civil servants. This discrepancy poses significant, unjustified
costs on member states, especially the U.S., which is the largest
contributor to the U.N. system, providing $7.7 billion in FY 2010.
[11] Personnel costs comprise 74 percent of the U.N. regular budget according to the U.S. Mission
[12]
and the budgets of most other U.N. organizations are similarly
structured. To address this critical budgetary issue, the U.S. should:
- Demand an immediate pay freeze until U.N. net remuneration matches that of the U.S. civil service;
- Urge the General Assembly to instruct the ICSC to use the U.S.
Office of Personnel Management locality pay adjustment for New York
rather than its own cost-of-living calculations; and
- Have the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the
Congressional Budget Office, or the Government Accountability Office
periodically conduct its own comparative analysis of U.N. compensation
versus that for U.S. federal workers, including establishing its own
equivalencies and comparing total compensation combining salaries and
benefits, as independent verification of the ICSC calculations.
Austerity at the U.N.
Fiscal prudence is always sound policy, but it is especially
urgent in this era of tight budgets and financial crisis. Governments
around the world have to implement austerity measures to meet budgetary
necessity. As a composite of the world’s nations, the U.N. should not be
insulated from this reality.
Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International
Regulatory Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a
division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for
International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
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Helen Clark 
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