In January 2014 many AST colleagues surprisingly found their posts reclassified as AST/SC without any prior notice or justification. Not surprisingly, Generation 2004’s initiative to propose a template for an Article 90 appeal also adopted by a majority of the unions (see here) was received with enthusiasm and many AST colleagues used this opportunity to demonstrate to the Commission’s HR services their frustration and dissatisfaction.
The long-awaited reply to their appeal is now just out. Surprise, surprise, in their reply the HR services keep trying to convince us that the reclassification of posts is simply a technical detail which does not affect – de facto or de jure – the real situation of AST colleagues.
We have a “counter-surprise” to share with our HR services … in that there are already cases where an AST post was left unoccupied, rather than a colleague on a AST/SC job being appointed… or even more outrageous: an AST/SC job colleagues was considered not good enough to occupy an AST post when his/her current job is de facto identical… the only difference being it is an AST/SC one! In this respect, will they still continue telling us that reclassification does not have an effect de facto?!?!
They simply seem to fail to understand that what we expect is much more than a formalistic reply on the edge of legal reasoning, so disconnected from the true aim of law which is to defend and restore justice. Do you imagine where the HR inventive interpretation could lead us? Let us speculate a bit… What would they reply to the next AST colleague with recognised de facto AD responsibilities, who, just for the sake of the experiment, applies for an AD job, arguing that the appointment does not require a reclassification of the type of post of person but is only a technical detail about the type of post of the job?!?! How about this inventive interpretation?
And there is something else which our HR services seem to hope we will not notice…
They say promotion prospects remain unchanged. We still need to ask how this statement correlates with other developments in recent HR policy. In a quiet shift of the promotions exercise, this year special attention is paid to the level of responsibility. This year the promotion quotas for AST category also include the ex-C category, leading to a situation where in future the comparison will be made for jobs with different responsibility levels implying that often, colleagues with lower responsibility will be left out. Just as a reminder, post-2004 colleagues were recruited in a system with a single AST category where internal differences were supposed to be gradually phased out. What happens now apparently is that a cast system in the AST is quietly being restored, clearly aiming towards pushing down as much as possible post-2004 ASTs. Not surprisingly, this is accompanied by an increasingly restrictive certification policy.
Make no mistake that we will continue with our legal action, but what is more important is that we will continue to insist that a coherent and transparent HR policy for the AST category is presented as soon as possible by the Commission. Just to throw some thoughts: a clear exit schedule from AST transition including analysis of the AST population and posts available, internal competitions from AST to AD and tailored planning of the certification exercises … are the minimum actions we expect to see.
