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Outsourcing (648,-666)
You searched for:
Keywords: Outsourcing
Total judgments found: 12
Judgment 4885
138th Session, 2024
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the abolition of his training duties.
Considerations 2-3 and 8
Extract:
According to the Tribunal’s settled case law, the outsourcing of services, which an international organisation may decide to undertake when it considers it necessary to assign certain tasks to an external service provider rather than to officials hired under its staff regulations, forms part of the management policy that the organisation is free to pursue in accordance with its general interests. As a result, the Tribunal is not competent to review the advisability or merits of the adoption of such a measure in a specific field of activity (see Judgments 4588, consideration 16, 3940, consideration 5, and 3376, consideration 2).
When an organisation decides to use the services of a subcontractor, it must ensure that the contract it signs with that subcontractor “will not have an adverse impact on the situation of officials who are subject to the staff regulations and will not unjustifiably infringe the rights they enjoy under those regulations” (see Judgments 3940, consideration 6, and 3376, consideration 2). However, the Tribunal has made clear in this respect that, given the definition of its competence set out in Article II of its Statute, “an official may challenge before the Tribunal the outsourcing of certain tasks only to the extent that such outsourcing has a direct adverse impact on the rights conferred by the official’s terms of appointment” (see Judgment 3376, consideration 3).
It is also well established in the case law that a decision determining a staff member’s duties is at the discretion of the executive head of the organisation that employs her or him and as such is subject to only limited review by the Tribunal. Such a decision may be set aside only if it is ultra vires or in breach of a rule of form or procedure, or shows some mistake of fact or of law, or has overlooked some essential fact, or if some obviously wrong inference has been drawn from the evidence, or if there is misuse of authority. It is not for the Tribunal to substitute its assessment for that of the organisation as regards the tasks to be entrusted to the staff member concerned (see Judgments 3902, consideration 11, 1590, consideration 4, and 968, consideration 8).
Furthermore, where – as in the present case – the decision does not concern a transfer but concerns merely an alteration of the duties to be performed on a given post, the Tribunal’s power of review defined above must be exercised with particular caution in order to respect the wide discretion enjoyed by the organisation in matching duties to needs (see Judgment 1590, consideration 4).
[...]
The Tribunal notes that the outsourcing at issue inherently involved the abolition of the complainant’s previous training duties and that it was a general measure which, far from concerning him specifically, affected all the Section’s in-house trainers. These considerations, together with the fact that, as has just been stated, the measure had indeed been taken by the Organization for a purpose pertaining to the interests of the service, inevitably lead to the dismissal of the complainant’s allegations of discrimination and harassment, which are clearly unfounded.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 968, 1590, 3376, 3902, 3940, 4588
Keywords:
outsourcing;
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; outsourcing;
Considerations 6 and 9
Extract:
Under the Tribunal’s case law, a job description does not confer an entitlement to the continued existence of the duties or responsibilities referred to therein, or of the post to which it relates (see, for example, Judgment 4654, consideration 19).
The Tribunal points out above all that any irregularity in the situation resulting from the absence of reference in the complainant’s job description to the training duties assigned to him at the time when he performed them does not affect the lawfulness of the decision to end them. The fact that these duties had not previously been officially recognised in that form, even assuming that they should have been, obviously did not in itself make their abolition unlawful. In reality, the complainant could have effectively submitted to the Tribunal the dispute which he wishes to raise not as a challenge to the decision at issue here, but as a challenge to a decision refusing to modify his job description to take account of his previous responsibilities, which it was up to him to elicit, if necessary, by submitting a request for such a modification to UNESCO at the appropriate time. [...]
As regards the plea of a failure to state reasons, it should be recalled that the Tribunal’s case law does not require the reasons for an administrative decision to necessarily be set out in the decision itself and allows them to be provided, for example, in other documents or orally (see Judgments 4451, consideration 11, 3662, consideration 3, or 1590, consideration 7). [...]
In those circumstances, and particularly since that outsourcing was sufficient in itself to explain the abolition of the training duties previously assigned to the complainant, the Tribunal considers that the alleged failure to state reasons of which he complains cannot, in any event, be accepted.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1590, 3662, 4451, 4654
Keywords:
motivation; outsourcing; post description;
Judgment 4880
138th Session, 2024
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the abolition of his training duties.
Considerations 2-3 and 8
Extract:
According to the Tribunal’s settled case law, the outsourcing of services, which an international organisation may decide to undertake when it considers it necessary to assign certain tasks to an external service provider rather than to officials hired under its staff regulations, forms part of the management policy that the organisation is free to pursue in accordance with its general interests. As a result, the Tribunal is not competent to review the advisability or merits of the adoption of such a measure in a specific field of activity (see Judgments 4588, consideration 16, 3940, consideration 5, and 3376, consideration 2).
When an organisation decides to use the services of a subcontractor, it must ensure that the contract it signs with that subcontractor “will not have an adverse impact on the situation of officials who are subject to the staff regulations and will not unjustifiably infringe the rights they enjoy under those regulations” (see Judgments 3940, consideration 6, and 3376, consideration 2). However, the Tribunal has made clear in this respect that, given the definition of its competence set out in Article II of its Statute, “an official may challenge before the Tribunal the outsourcing of certain tasks only to the extent that such outsourcing has a direct adverse impact on the rights conferred by the official’s terms of appointment” (see Judgment 3376, consideration 3).
It is also well established in the case law that a decision determining a staff member’s duties is at the discretion of the executive head of the organisation that employs her or him and as such is subject to only limited review by the Tribunal. Such a decision may be set aside only if it is ultra vires or in breach of a rule of form or procedure, or shows some mistake of fact or of law, or has overlooked some essential fact, or if some obviously wrong inference has been drawn from the evidence, or if there is misuse of authority. It is not for the Tribunal to substitute its assessment for that of the organisation as regards the tasks to be entrusted to the staff member concerned (see Judgments 3902, consideration 11, 1590, consideration 4, and 968, consideration 8).
Furthermore, where – as in the present case – the decision does not concern a transfer but concerns merely an alteration of the duties to be performed on a given post, the Tribunal’s power of review defined above must be exercised with particular caution in order to respect the wide discretion enjoyed by the organisation in matching duties to needs (see Judgment 1590, consideration 4).
[...]
The Tribunal notes that the outsourcing at issue inherently involved the abolition of the complainant’s previous training duties and that it was a general measure which, far from concerning him specifically, affected all the Section’s in-house trainers. These considerations, together with the fact that, as has just been stated, the measure had indeed been taken by the Organization for a purpose pertaining to the interests of the service, inevitably lead the Tribunal to dismiss the complainant’s allegations of discrimination and abuse of power, which are clearly unfounded.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 968, 1590, 3376, 3902, 3940, 4588
Keywords:
outsourcing;
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; outsourcing;
Considerations 6 and 9
Extract:
Under the Tribunal’s case law, a job description does not confer an entitlement to the continued existence of the duties or responsibilities referred to therein, or of the post to which it relates (see, for example, Judgment 4654, consideration 19).
The Tribunal points out above all that any irregularity in the situation resulting from the absence of reference in the complainant’s job description to the training duties assigned to him at the time when he performed them does not affect the lawfulness of the decision to end them. The fact that these duties had not previously been officially recognised in that form, even assuming that they should have been, obviously did not in itself make their abolition unlawful. In reality, the complainant could have effectively submitted to the Tribunal the dispute which he wishes to raise not as a challenge to the decision at issue here, but as a challenge to a decision refusing to modify his job description to take account of his previous responsibilities, which it was up to him to elicit, if necessary, by submitting a request for such a modification to UNESCO at the appropriate time.
[...]
As regards the plea of a failure to state reasons, it should be recalled that the Tribunal’s case law does not require the reasons for an administrative decision to necessarily be set out in the decision itself and allows them to be provided, for example, in other documents or orally (see Judgments 4451, consideration 11, 3662, consideration 3, or 1590, consideration 7). [...]
In those circumstances, and particularly since that outsourcing was sufficient in itself to explain the abolition of the training duties previously assigned to the complainant, the Tribunal considers that the alleged failure to state reasons of which he complains cannot, in any event, be accepted.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1590, 3662, 4451, 4654
Keywords:
motivation; outsourcing; post description;
Judgment 4654
136th Session, 2023
World Intellectual Property Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant seeks a redefinition of his employment relationship and the setting aside of the decision not to renew his employment contract.
Consideration 19
Extract:
It is clear from the submissions that the functions of statistician that he performed in HRMD no longer met that department’s requirements at the time when the decisions were taken. The IT projects on which the complainant mostly worked – namely those in the “ERP portfolio” – were due to finish in June 2017. Furthermore, new applications meant that WIPO’s various administrative units could now compile their own human resources statistics rather than needing as a matter of course to consult a specialist in this field employed within HRMD, with the result that HRMD no longer needed to have a full-time statistician. Contrary to what the complainant submits, the job description for his post, as drawn up in 2008, had been rendered obsolete, given that the content of a document of this type does not confer an entitlement to the continued existence of the post to which it relates.
It thus appears that sufficient reasons underlay the abolition of the complainant’s post to justify that decision and accordingly that the disputed decision not to renew his appointment was itself based on valid, objective reasons, in compliance with the requirement recalled in consideration 16(b) [...].
Keywords:
abolition of post; motivation; outsourcing; post description;
Judgment 4587
135th Session, 2023
South Centre
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the non-renewal of her fixed-term appointment.
Consideration 16
Extract:
With respect to the findings of the Appellate Body that there were valid, objective and substantiated reasons for discontinuing in-house translation and thus ultimately not renewing the contract of the complainant, notwithstanding the latter’s understandable disagreement, it remains that, based on the analysis conducted by the Administration and the costs evaluations made, there were justifications for the outsourcing of translation services that, in fact, permitted significant savings while reducing translation times as well as increasing the number of translated languages. This is supported by the written submissions filed as well as by the annexes. In Judgment 3376, at consideration 2, the Tribunal indicated that “[t]he outsourcing of certain services, that is to say the use by an organisation of external contractors to perform tasks that it feels unable to assign to officials hired under its staff regulations, forms part of the general employment policy that an organisation is free to pursue in accordance with its general interests. The Tribunal is not competent to review the advisability or merits of the adoption of such a measure in a specific field of activity”.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3376
Keywords:
abolition of post; outsourcing; reorganisation;
Judgment 4194
128th Session, 2019
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainants challenge the refusal to consult them concerning the use of external contractors.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
cause of action; competence of tribunal; complaint dismissed; en banc review; outsourcing; plenary judgment; staff representative;
Judgment 3940
125th Session, 2018
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to abolish his post.
Consideration 5
Extract:
The Tribunal has consistently held that the outsourcing of certain services, that is to say the use by an organisation of external contractors to perform tasks that it feels unable to assign to officials hired under its staff regulations, forms part of the general employment policy that an organisation is free to pursue in accordance with its general interests. The Tribunal is not competent to review the advisability or merits of the adoption of such a measure in a specific field of activity (see Judgments 3275, under 8, 3225, under 6, 3041, under 6, 2972, under 7, 2907, under 13, 2510, under 10, 2156, under 8, and 1131, under 5).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1131, 2156, 2510, 2907, 2972, 3041, 3225, 3275
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; organisation's interest; outsourcing;
Consideration 6
Extract:
In Judgment 3376 [...] the Tribunal recalled that an organisation “that resorts to subcontractors, be they companies or individuals, must ensure that the contract it signs with them will not have an adverse impact on the situation of officials who are subject to the staff regulations and will not unjustifiably infringe the rights they enjoy under those regulations. The risk of such an infringement is particularly great in the case of long-term contractual outsourcing and in cases where the tasks involved are still partly performed concurrently by regular staff (see Judgment 2919 passim). In such cases the duty of care requires the organisation to provide the staff concerned with adequate information concerning the outsourcing procedures and their possible impact on their professional situation and to prevent any possible adverse impact thereon (see Judgments 2519, under 10, 1756, under 10(b), and 1780, under 6(a)).”
[...]
The lack of transparency noted by the Appeals Board is corroborated by the evidence on file, which shows that although the complainant contacted his supervisors on numerous occasions, they did not provide him with sufficient information as to the reasons for the outsourcing of the tasks that he performed and the way in which it would be achieved. Moreover, the evidence does not show that the Organization did its utmost to minimise the negative impact of the use of service contracts on the complainant’s status.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1756, 1780, 2519, 2919, 3376
Keywords:
duty of care; duty to inform; outsourcing;
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
abolition of post; complaint allowed; decision quashed; fixed-term; outsourcing;
Judgment 3615
121st Session, 2016
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges, in his capacity as a staff representative, the EPO’s practice on outsourcing.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint allowed; en banc review; outsourcing; plenary judgment; staff representative;
Judgment 3462
119th Session, 2015
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complaint, clearly irreceivable, is summarily dismissed.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
cause of action; complaint dismissed; general decision; locus standi; outsourcing; summary procedure;
Consideration 3
Extract:
"The Tribunal recently had an opportunity to clarify the conditions under which an official can challenge the decision regarding the outsourcing of certain functions. The Tribunal found that it followed from Article II, paragraph 1, of its Statute that an official may challenge before the Tribunal the outsourcing of certain tasks only to the extent that such outsourcing has a direct adverse impact on the rights conferred on the official by her/his terms of appointment (see Judgment 3376, under 3). This condition is clearly not satisfied in the present case as the complainant does not even attempt to explain how the outsourcing in question or the centralization process he challenges before the Tribunal has a direct adverse effect on him or on the rights conferred upon him by his terms of appointment."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3376
Keywords:
general decision; locus standi; outsourcing;
Judgment 3460
119th Session, 2015
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The Tribunal found that the Organisation properly exercised its discretion and it summarily dismissed the complaint.
Judgment keywords
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2367, 2703
Keywords:
cause of action; complaint dismissed; outsourcing; summary procedure;
Judgment 3376
118th Session, 2014
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The Tribunal dismissed the complaint seeking the opening of an investigation into the lawfulness of the outsourcing of certain services to a private company.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; outsourcing;
Considerations 2 and 3
Extract:
"The outsourcing of certain services, that is to say the use by an organisation of external contractors to perform tasks that it feels unable to assign to officials hired under its staff regulations, forms part of the general employment policy that an organisation is free to pursue in accordance with its general interests. The Tribunal is not competent to review the advisability or merits of the adoption of such a measure in a specific field of activity (see Judgments 3225, under 6, 3275, under 8, 3041, under 6, 2972, under 7, 2907, under 13, 2510, under 10, 2156, under 8, and 1131, under 5).
An organisation that resorts to subcontractors, be they companies or individuals, must ensure that the contract it signs with them will not have an adverse impact on the situation of officials who are subject to the staff regulations and will not unjustifiably infringe the rights they enjoy under those regulations. The risk of such an infringement is particularly great in the case of long-term contractual outsourcing and in cases where the tasks involved are still partly performed concurrently by regular staff (see Judgment 2919 passim). In such cases the duty of care requires the organisation to provide the staff concerned with adequate information concerning the outsourcing procedures and their possible impact on their professional situation and to prevent any possible adverse impact thereon (see Judgments 2519, under 10, 1756, under 10(b), and 1780, under 6(a)).
It follows from the foregoing and from Article II, paragraph 1, of the Statute of the Tribunal that an official may challenge before the Tribunal the outsourcing of certain tasks only to the extent that such outsourcing has a direct adverse impact on the rights conferred by the official’s terms of appointment."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1131, 1756, 1780, 2156, 2519, 2919, 3041, 3225, 3275
Keywords:
duty of care; outsourcing;
Judgment 3373
118th Session, 2014
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The Tribunal stated that the Organisation, after having outsourced a part of the complainant's duties, breached its duty of care because it failed to ensure that the implementation of the arrangement did not place the complainant in financial difficulties.
Consideration 7
Extract:
"The evidence on file shows that the outsourcing of some of the complainant’s duties resulted in a sharp drop in his level of remuneration. He had a legitimate expectation that his remuneration would remain stable."
Keywords:
outsourcing; salary;
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint allowed; decision quashed; outsourcing;
Judgment 3343
118th Session, 2014
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant, acting as a staff representative, challenges the Organisation’s direct placement of a contract with an external consulting firm.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; en banc review; locus standi; outsourcing; plenary judgment; staff representative;
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