Stories on the ground

Story 1  LA Function Group IV recruited as  section secretary.  Later on the job task of the DMO (document managing officer) is added to the job description and this has been the situation for more than 2 years.  Management refused to discuss changing the post to Group III.

Story 2  Group III secretary with extensive research experience.  Section added tasks such as desk research and translation for politically relevant subject.  Although being classified as ‘essential staff’, there was no initiative to correct the job function to Group II.

Story 3  In the same Delegation there are 8 secretaries recruited to do exactly the same tasks.  However 7 are group III and one is Group IV.  Management simply refuse to correct the singled out post to Group III although the tasks performed are the same.

Story 4  Four project managers in the same Delegation are managing projects in the same manner.  Three of them are Group I while one is Group II.  The colleague was transferred from another section as Group II while it was clear that the job in the new section is a group I post.  Despite this, there was no will in the Delegation to correct the function group.

Stories like this are unfortunately replicating from one delegation to another.  In particular stories 3 and 4 are the case for almost all Delegations.  Generation 2004 is in touch and aware: DG International Partnerships (INTPA) has begun to take measures for the correction of cases progressively.  Yet, it is very demoralising to know that other DGs have no any action plan related to these issues.

Even if finally the function group is corrected, the years of experience are to be discarded

In some of the luckier situations, when a colleague finally gets the chance to apply for the post in the correct function group, their years of experience simply get discarded completely.  Therefore the longer this issue goes on, the more severe the financial and psychological damage a colleague has to face.  Does the concept of ‘equal pay for equal work’ apply only to situations involving remuneration parity between different genders?  Is it not ethically a necessity to make the remuneration equal when two jobs have an identical profile within the same Delegation?

Is it expected that staff members succumb to their fate:  When they applied for the job, it was advertised as Group IV, so even after they work in the Delegation and realise that it is unfair, they should simply convince themselves to accept difference?

Empty promises, as usual?

During the social dialogue of Local Agent employment conditions, where all trade unions and staff associations (OSPs) [Organisations syndicales et professionnelles] and social partners together extensively discussed this topic, management agreed to look into this issue.  The social dialogue is now well concluded and after over 18 months, there is still no action from either DG HR or any of the DGs involved.

Each year during the evaluations, staff get to be assessed on their efficiency and dedication to their work.  If DG HR were to be evaluated by staff members, what would be the grade they receive?  It is time to bring into the discussion accountability, fairness and having acceptable administrative behaviour.  Staff members are simply fed up and tired of being ignored.  There should at least be some level of feedback and an action plan.

Generation 2004 requests DG HR together with all other DGs involved launch their promised exercise:  launch a survey for all Delegations and address the function-group disparity issues.  This should be at least the very start: if we do not know the scope of the problem, we will never find a solution for it.

For Local agents in Delegation who are in the above situation, please send us your job profile and narrative.

The bigger picture

This appears to be part of an ongoing strategy of recruiting people to lower grades and salaries than would previously have been the case. This ‘juniorisation’ of roles within the Commission is happening across contract types and function groups. Any idea or remedying the situation via internal competitions is blocked by the Commission (but not Parliament, Court of Justice of Committee of the Regions) policy of limiting competitions by function group. Most of the affected staff are unable to use the Junior Professionals Programme (JPP) system bypass since they have well in excess of the maximum 3 years of experience permitted.

Here are some examples of role/grade/function group mismatches

Administrators (ADs): ‘…. discrepancies between grade and level of responsibility exist among officials. Experienced professionals in junior grades (AD6 to AD8) may be assigned greater responsibility than higher graded staff recruited before them.’ Paragraph 62, European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff

AST/SC: Article 90(2) complaint lodged against a published post for an AST/SC financial assistant. Generation 2004 is the first and only staff representation to reveal and condemn the ongoing process of replacing non-secretary assistant (AST) staff with secretaries and clerks (AST/SC) staff

Contract Agents: ‘the 2004 and 2014 reforms of the EU staff regulations, which created a system in which the date of recruitment is more important for career development than merit, qualification, and professional expertise. The Commission has continuously replaced permanent officials with contract agents (CAs), with CAs currently representing over 22 % of the Commission’s workforce. Although contractual staff is only supposed to perform “non-core tasks”, they do the work of permanent officials without being recognised accordingly. Moreover, there is an increase in harassment cases associated to tensions between permanent officials and CAs. The petitioner therefore demands the elimination of structural unfairness and the implementation of the principle of “equal pay for equal work”. To this end, she proposes a series of measures to improve the working conditions of CAs, including permanent contracts for those working on permanent tasks, fair reclassification rates, better access to the EU institutions internal job market and preferential recruitment over external applicants.’

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