Post-reform Equal Pay Day is a reminder of the unequal pay conditions affecting everyone who joined the European Institutions after the Kinnock Reform of 1 May 2004. The latest reform that took effect on 1 January 2014 has only made matters worse by introducing complications in the career structure, and by lowering the entry salary once again; more and more contract agent (CA) staff are employed at ever lower salaries; the new category of assistants/secretaries and clerks (AST/SC), and the ensuing confusion generated by the automatic conversion of AST posts to AST/SC posts, puts new employees in a financially precarious situation while confusing and frustrating AST staff who suddenly find themselves sitting on AST/SC posts.
Post-reform colleagues end-up with a salary that is on average one third lower than that of colleagues who joined the institutions before the Kinnock reform. As a consequence, post-reform colleagues perform the same jobs but are being asked to work for free for one third of the year. To mark this inequality of treatment and salary, Generation 2004 “celebrates” each year the Post-reform Equal Pay Day on 1st May, and will do so as long as the institutions refuse to address the problem.
The Commission’s proposal for a European Pillar of Social Rights was adopted at the end of April. In this pillar, you will find 20 principles upheld by the Commission. Among them, the second principle recalls the fact that Women and men have the right to equal pay for work of equal value. (Link here)
Considering that there is a majority of women among those recruited after the 2004 reform, this principle directly applies to the staff of the EU Institutions. Can the Commission and the other institutions fail to apply their principles to their own staff?
But cheer up. If you were recruited after the 2004 reform, you have worked for free since the beginning of the year. As from this week until the end of the year, you will finally be earning the same wage as your pre-2004 colleagues in the other offices for your work!
