Having in mind the current wave of Euroscepticism, at Generation 2004 we believe it is time to defend the ‘European project’ and a common political agreement that fosters equal treatment between all staff categories. On the 4th of April 2019 Generation 2004 took the initiative to call for an “inter-syndical” meeting with all trade unions and staff organisations in order to discuss the situation of post-2004 staff in the EC. Generation 2004 not only organised this “inter-syndical” meeting, but made a point of being represented by several elected Contract Agents.
According to the political declaration of Guenther OETTINGER, Commissioner for Budget & Human Resources and to the 2017 GIPs for Contractual staff, the situation of this category of EU staff should have improved. However, inequality persists:
- There are fewer and fewer mobility opportunities,
- Career perspectives are almost inexistent,
- Social dumping is the daily specials, and
- precarious contracts are ubiquitous.
All this has affected well educated and very experienced professionals who have tried to realise their European dream by working for the European Commission. Generation 2004 also underlines the equal pay for equal work paradigm, which is still a hot topic (see our article on the meeting with the Commissioner [1]).
Following the two intersyndical meetings (April and May), the unions and staff organisations will use all their energy to apply and defend their political promises concerning the contract staff. First, they should come up with detailed proposals for all improvement areas of Contract Agents’ working conditions. These include mobility, the reclassification exercise, internal competitions and career perspectives (faster reclassification, change of functional group and much more). Secondly, unions and staff organisations need to actively contribute to the preparation of yet another meeting with full focus on Contract Agents with Commissioner OETTINGER.
Inequality, especially in the workplace, is a social problem. Political ideas need concrete policy proposals to become reality, so we must act now!
The Generation 2004 elected Contract Agents invite everyone to share his/her experience during the monthly CAs FORUM meetings organised every first Thursday from 12.30 to 14.00 in J-70II 1/128 meeting room. Come meet us and help our conditions improve. Together we are stronger!
toolTips('.classtoolTips23','Contract Agents (CAs) were created by the 2004 staff regulations Reform. There are two types of CA: those with unlimited contracts, 3A [2] (‘indefinite’) and those with time-limited contracts [3], 3B [4]. CAs can belong to 4 different function groups (\'GF\') with different responsibilities and salaries [5].
As the use of contract staff becomes increasingly common, there has been a corresponding increase in the diversity of status and pay of the Commission’s workforce. For example, GFIV contract staff meeting the same minimum recruitment requirements (education and experience) as junior administrators may earn 28 % less. (European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019 [6]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff, point 61, page 34)
We have a working group dedicated to the dossier, and in December 2012 we addressed the first of many letters (\'notes\') about Contract Agents to Human Resources of all Institutions and agencies [7] (here is the cover e-mail [8]).
As a background you can see the report of the Commission to the Council regarding the recruitment of the contract agents in 2010 [9] (in French, COM(2011)802 final 23.11.2011).
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