On 30 April, Guenther OETTINGER, Commissioner for Budget & Human Resources, invited trade unions and staff representatives to discuss some very hot topics:
- Future reform of the staff regulations;
- impact of Brexit on the 2019 and 2020 budgets;
- MFF negotiations;
- results of the Staff (lack-of-) Satisfaction Survey; and,
- geographical unbalance in recruitment.
Generation 2004 recently thanked the Commissioner for defending the EU civil service [1] and while we repeated that message in person, we also took the opportunity to ask him to put an emphasis in defending post-2004 staff by applying the principle of equal pay for equal work in the same place and also to defend Contract Agents, our most precarious colleagues. We underlined the need to stop abusive practices such as recruitment of FGII or FGIII instead of FGIV or recruiting CA 3b for permanent tasks.
While we were happy to hear that for every extra day the UK stays in the EU the 2019 budget gap is reduced, we are concerned about the 6 Billion EUR cuts in 2020 proposed if UK leaves abruptly. Generation 2004 requested not to impose any additional cuts on staff. However, should there be any, then the principle of proportionality should be a must.
We are also concerned that nine Member States (AT, SE, FR, NL, DE, HU, CZ, IE and ES) requested further cuts and want to reopen the Staff Regulations to do so, despite the contradictory acknowledgment that the geographical unbalance in recruitment is caused by lesser attractiveness of the EU institutions. Commissioner Guenther OETTINGER assured however, that an opening should not take place before 2021.
Finally, with regard to the Staff Survey, we see that the glass is half-empty as 44% of the staff did not participate, due to the lack of adequate recognition and implementation of previous Survey’s results. We also asked to publish the results split not only between ADs and AST but also based on categories. Commissioner OETTINGER agreed with that proposal.
Following up on our recent initiative to call for an inter-syndical meeting on Contract Agents [2], Generation 2004 asked the Commissioner to organise another meeting fully dedicated to the situation of the Contract Agents. With the goal to have this initiative organised as broadly and energetically as possible, we reiterate our call for a detailed discussion during the inter-syndical meetings in April and May with all trade unions and staff associations.
toolTips('.classtoolTips19','Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union (\'Staff Regulations [3] (SR)\') are rules stating:
• fundamental conditions of service
• basic rights, duties and obligations of staff.
The SR have been reformed x 2 (so far):
• 2004 (Kinnock White paper)
• 2014 (Regulation 1023/2013 [4])
For a summary of stated intentions and real outcomes of those two reforms check out: European Court of Auditors, 2019, Special report no 15/2019 [5]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff
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Contract Agents (CAs) were created by the 2004 Staff Regulations Reform. There are two types of CA: those with unlimited contracts, 3A [6] (‘indefinite’) and those with time-limited contracts [7], 3B [8]. CAs can belong to 4 different function groups (\'GF\') with different responsibilities and salaries [9].
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 [5]: 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 [10] (here is the cover e-mail [11]).
As a background you can see the report of the Commission to the Council regarding the recruitment of the contract agents in 2010 [12] (in French, COM(2011)802 final 23.11.2011).
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