These are difficult times for everyone, and there are different ways that we all try to best cope with the situation. Below is a proposal we received from one of our colleagues, that we help passing on. We leave it to you to judge if that is something that could work for you or you would like to try it out.
Take good care, stay safe and positive! Continue reading Thought Field Therapy training
Mandatory teleworking has become the rule for thousands of colleagues in the Commission and it is likely to remain so for weeks if not months to come. Generation 2004 fully supports this measure in the interest of public health and the protection of staff, but we are also concerned that the measure may place a disproportionate burden on some staff. Continue reading Teleworkers need help
*Update 16.01.2025 unfortunately, we’re unable to find anything written, so this is an unwritten rule, stated in a committee meeting in late 2024. Those of you well enough to work but not well enough to do ‘voluntary’ standby duty (DGT, for example) can be (temporarily) excused from standby: get in touch with the Medical Service. Again, the mental gymnastics needed to continue to insist that this unpaid standby duty is ‘voluntary’. This is especially frustrating when we see that this time doesn’t even count towards the time already ‘gifted‘ to the Commission (which we believe to be the tip of the iceberg.
Continue reading “Generation 2004 stands by staff on standby” yet again
Some Commission staff in European Commission (EC) Representations to EU Member States are subject to rotation. Under normal circumstances the exercise is already complex to manage. If you have any doubts about that, then think about the last time you moved house and then add to it: Continue reading Generation 2004 requests suspension of staff rotation in Representations during COVID-19 crisis
Generation 2004 continues to take action on the working conditions issues raised by you: we have sent a further note to the director general of HR, Ms Ingestad, highlighting four of the most pressing: Continue reading Note to DG HR on COVID-19 working conditions
For our daily work ‘For the many, not the few’ Generation 2004 employs a team of committed and hardworking colleagues. Due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, our last call for interest has not allowed us to find a candidate and we invite you again to apply for this full-time secretary post. We offer a Contract Agent FG II contract. If you are not eligible but you know someone that is and that you believe could be interested in the job, please feel free to forward the message on. Continue reading Generation 2004 is hiring a Secretary at the European Commission in Brussels
It seems our article on the Brussels Local Staff Committee (LSC) positive change from last month was perhaps given the wrong title. Following the latest March plenary session, we now believe a question mark is needed. The correct title would then be: Positive change at the Brussels Local Staff Committee?
We believe this is so because of the positions and actions of some trade unions during the March plenary session, held with the single point of electing a new president of the LSC Brussels and this despite the request by Generation 2004 to include other points of more relevance for staff in the agenda. Continue reading Positive change at the Brussels Local Staff Committee?
The 2004 and 2014 staff regulations reforms introduced discrimination towards colleagues hired in the post 2004 generation, most of them from the – at the time – ten new Member States, which later got to 12 and eventually 13. These reforms introduced many changes affecting a wide range of working conditions for these newer colleagues while not touching most of the benefits of the already existing civil servants. Noteworthy are:
Continue reading A little reminder why Generation 2004 MUST exist
When you start in the European Institutions, you might already have worked somewhere else and gained pension rights that you can transfer into our pension scheme of European officials (PSEO), a so-called transfer-in. The same is possible or even compulsory when you leave the Institutions, a so-called transfer-out. For a transfer-in, your previous pension scheme transfers a certain amount of money to the PSEO: in return, you get credited with some more time that is used for the calculation of your future pension paid by the PSEO. For a transfer-out, the PSEO calculates what your accumulated ‘years’ are worth and transfers this sum to your next pension scheme.
Continue reading Updated conversion coefficients for transfer of pension rights
In this third and final article in our series about complementary health insurance, we will present some of the available options for this type of insurance. If you have missed the previous articles, you can still find them all on our website and linked below[*].
As explained in the previous articles, the external schemes fall into two categories: ‘Hospitalisation only’ and ‘Hospitalisation and other medical expenses’. Continue reading Available options for complementary health insurance
