One year ago, the Commission ordered most officials to join Signal groups for the purpose of a business-continuity test. The order lacked any legal basis and even the basic respect for GDPR principles. While most of us might choose to share gladly our mobile phone number with direct colleagues, we believe that this voluntary openness cannot and should not be considered an obligation. Continue reading Who owns your mobile phone? Work-related communications on private devices
Staff Regulations Reform
The first staff regulation reform: a new underclass (long read)
*Update 15.01.2025, Here’s our December note on the technical difficulties in application process in a call for expression of interest for the internal competition JPP14 (French and German as language 2).*
*Update 20.12.2024, Here’s our Note to HR on European Court of Auditors Special report: European Court of Auditors, 2024, Special report 24/2024: EU Civil service–A flexible employment framework, insufficiently used to improve workforce management* Continue reading The first staff regulation reform: a new underclass (long read)
Oops … the Commission did it again! Illegal request on private phones
It’s not even a month since the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) ordered the Commission to suspend illegal personal data flows and we see another such order coming.
Last December, the Commission launched a ‘business continuity’ exercise asking most colleagues (if not all, it was never clear) to provide their private mobile phone numbers to create Signal private messenger groups where they could be contacted for work matters. Continue reading Oops … the Commission did it again! Illegal request on private phones
From culture of trust to control freak
HR has stated its intention for the new time-registration tool to allow for comparison with office badging data at DG level: is this a solution in search of a problem?
One of the pillars of the Decision on working time and hybrid working (WTHW) is the culture of trust: a word used repeatedly at the December town hall. At the end of the day, staff are responsible for drafting European law, managing European funds and responding to the needs of the general public and Members States. A large part of European staff perform basically intellectual work; they are information workers and this can be difficult to quantify on a daily basis: only by the results in the mid and long term. Continue reading From culture of trust to control freak
Housing prices in Luxembourg – the state takes action for renters
*Update 07.11.2022 we add a list of all available state aid in Luxembourg.* In the absence of any real action on the issue of Luxembourg housing costs from the EU institutions, assistance is now available from the Luxembourgish state for those on lower incomes (for Luxembourg(!)[1]) who are renting. The subsidy is between €200 and €400 per month, depending on take-home pay and how many children there are in your household. Looking at our salary scales, and depending on individual circumstances, this might help staff in all function groups and categories, but particularly our contract agent (CA), assistant (AST) and secretaries and clerks (AST/SC) colleagues. Using the pay calculator as a rough guide, we see that the Luxembourg national authority evaluation of what constitutes a low income includes our colleagues e.g. in CA III, grade 9(5), AST2(1) and AST/SC3(1). Please don’t just look at your payslip, not all allowances count towards your net income. Check out whether you are eligible by requesting a PMO certificate via the MyIntracomm Luxembourg state aid page. Let the PMO do an official calculation, you might be pleasantly surprised! Continue reading Housing prices in Luxembourg – the state takes action for renters
Housing prices in Luxembourg – the Commission is fully committed to doing nothing
*Update 12.04.2024 confirms it will continue to rely on state aid for accommodation in Luxembourg here is a list of that aid.* Original article: Colleagues in Luxembourg are well aware of the housing situation there: prices are so high that an increasing number of colleagues are unable to afford accommodation in or close to the city of Luxembourg. Generation 2004 has raised this point repeatedly and so we were very eager to see what (if any) measures the Commission might propose in its report to the Parliament and the Council on the application of the salary method (document COM(2022) 180 final). Calling this report a disappointment would be an understatement: dear Commissioner Hahn, if you don’t want to do anything for the colleagues in Luxembourg, just say so and don’t put up smokescreens. That would at least be an honest statement, instead of the current beating around the bush. Continue reading Housing prices in Luxembourg – the Commission is fully committed to doing nothing
Time for the Commission to focus on inclusion: cancer survivors
Generation 2004 strongly supports colleagues in the EU institutions affected by cancer, just as we support colleagues with any important issue impacting their physical and/or mental health. As the Commission has been in the process of revising its HR strategy for almost 2 years now, it is high time to put in place a new policy to better cater for the needs of cancer survivors and their families and the needs of all colleagues whose complex situations are not well covered by the current patchwork of rules [1]. Continue reading Time for the Commission to focus on inclusion: cancer survivors
Housing costs in Luxembourg: recognition?
*update 01.04.2022 Corporate Management Board meeting of 30 March 2022 – Flash note: ‘12 actions are being proposed to increase the attractiveness of Luxembourg as place of employment’*
Colleagues in Luxembourg are facing today (well … for over a decade really) house prices that are in no way comparable to those in Brussels, although they receive the same salaries. In the words of DG HR: “This […] has been subject to criticism by some staff members whose place of employment is Luxembourg, who have argued that it does not properly reflect differences in the cost of living between Brussels and Luxembourg.” Continue reading Housing costs in Luxembourg: recognition?
Assistants (ASTs) FAQs
*Update 21.11.2024 check out the European Court of Auditors, 2024, Special report 24/2024: EU Civil service–A flexible employment framework, insufficiently used to improve workforce management: it concludes that ‘…the institutions do not focus on imbalances in the SC and AST function groups in their analysis, and concentrate instead on the AD group, and in particular the starting grades (AD5-AD8).‘ (P. 51) Check out their corresponding chart on p.51. Why on Earth focus efforts on part of a function group?[1] Where’s the global vision? Why tackle the hard stuff?*
Stop the phasing out of the AST function group!
A brief history of assistants, secretaries and clerks in the European Commission
Since 2018 Generation 2004 has been warning of and working against the phasing out of the assistants (AST) function group (FG) and the placing of all AST staff in ‘transition’. To better understand the issues at stake, we need to briefly examine the history and evolution of assistants, secretaries and clerks (AST/SC) in the European Commission. Continue reading Stop the phasing out of the AST function group!
