The hidden costs of teleworking – and now energy prices!

*Update 09.10.2023 please participate in the Commission survey on the environmental impact of teleworking: deadline 11.10.2023. These emmissions must also be counted in greening the Commission!**Update November 2022, we have republished this survey in order to make a comparison, please participate!* *Update March 2022: 1193 colleagues responded to our additional teleworking costs survey: only 2.85% saw no utility-bill increase. With 27% of respondents seeing their monthly bills increase by a total of 51-100 EUR.*

Original article: All over Europe, energy prices have been rising during 2021 and they skyrocketed at the end of 2021. Naturally, this situation has an impact on Commission employees as well, most of whom have been working from home since 16 March 2020. The burden of the associated costs has been particularly heavy for with lower salaries such as temporary staff (Contract Agents (CAs) and  temporary agents (TAs)) and those further down the salary scales (secretaries and clerks (AST-SCs) and assistants (ASTs)).

Additionally, our salary increase of 2.5% from 2020 remains frozen, while public-sector workers in Member States (on whom this calculation is based) are benefitting from it. It is against this backdrop that many colleagues are now faced with an unprecedented rise in their energy bills: gas prices in Luxembourg have risen by almost 30%, while in Belgium natural gas costs now 50% more than in July 2021. Many Member States are taking measures to protect their population from the worst of these effects. Unfortunately, Commission staff are often not covered by these measures.

The Commission already has the information it needs:

  • we have raised this issue with the administration on several occasions (e.g. April 2020)
  • we have also encouraged many of you to formally complain (Article 90) using your bills as evidence (thanks again to everyone who did so!),
  • the 2021 Eurostat staff housing survey (closed 16.06.2021) not only asked about accommodation costs, but also about your working-from-home setup [1]

The Commission already has an example to follow:

but the results so far are … – let’s just say there is room for improvement here.

We need to show the administration the scale of the problem. This is really affecting us all: let’s put the numbers together. Individual complaints can (and are) side-lined, an avalanche of evidence is a bigger challenge. And for this, we need your help: would you please fill in our survey about your increase in energy prices, so that we can show the administration concrete examples in black and white what the problem is?  The Commission has the means and the opportunity to act, let’s encourage them to find the motivation!

Further, we are organising a lunchtime conference on Thursday, 27 January on the costs of teleworking: we are eager to hear how you are affected by the rise in energy costs and other costs related to working from home.

While we have been asking since April 2020 for the administration to provide some contribution to the additional costs associated with teleworking (and we did get something after many efforts [2]), the current situation is even worse than it was throughout the pandemic and many colleagues just cannot continue to shoulder these additional costs long-term. The new working time and hybrid working text (still under negotiation) does make mention of a potential lump sum payment, but details have yet to be shared on what, if anything, would come from this: nevertheless it is an acknowledgement of sorts, but we want to see concrete action!

We are therefore urging the Commission to do the right thing, be fair with staff and contribute to our additional costs.

As always, we are eager to hear from you.

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[1] ‘When teleworking, how many rooms in your dwelling can be used as an office?’ We wondered what the criteria would be for a room being used as an office: that it has a door/no one currently sleeping in it/is not the bathroom/the Wi-Fi reaches it? We  find only a preliminary analysis of the survey results on MyIntracomm (17.09.2021) which states ‘the final validation of results is only expected later this autumn.’ We’ve asked for an update on this.

[2] But even that was very unevenly distributed e.g.

  • by institution:the EEAS had its own scheme,
  • by staff category: CAs and TAs who leave the Commission before 5 years have passed, counting from the date of the reimbursement, are to pay some part of the amount back.
  • by site:  Ispra from 29.10.2021 got the means to request the home-working equipment to which most of the rest of us had access from 01.06.2020.

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