The UN Staff Union voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to express no confidence in UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his top managers after Annan announced plans to overhaul the UN bureaucracy.

A motion "to express a statement of no confidence in the secretary-general and his senior management team" was opposed by just two of the more than 500 UN employees attending a closed-door emergency meeting of the staff group, said Staff Union official Guy Candusso.

Annan two days earlier had introduced a 33-page report on UN management reform that proposed outsourcing some UN work or moving staff out of the United States for some translation services, document production, printing and publishing and information technology.

He also recommended more financial oversight, simplified hiring and firing procedures, staff buyouts, more training and a modern information system.

The costs of the plan could run to US$500 million. Approval rests in the hands of the 191 UN member-nations.

Annan argued existing rules and regulations "make it very hard for the organization to conduct its work efficiently or effectively" and said a "radical overhaul" was needed.

But staff members said they feared he would slash payrolls and programs in order to cut down on costs.

In the resolution, the union expressed "solidarity with those staff who are being targeted in the current report, understanding that, in the future, all staff may be at risk."

It also expressed "a statement of no confidence in the secretary-general and his senior management team."

Asked to respond to the resolution, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, "We fully understand that these are unsettling times for the staff but we encourage all staff whether in New York or around the world to read the report fully."

US Ambassador John Bolton, whose government has pushed hard for extensive reforms at the United Nations, declined comment on the staff vote but said all organizations needed to regularly review their activities to see which were better performed internally and which could be outsourced.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies March 10, 2006)