The petitioner criticises the 2004 and 2014 reforms of the EU staff regulations, which created a system in which the date of recruitment is more important for career development than merit, qualification, and professional expertise. The Commission has continuously replaced permanent officials with contract agents (CAs), with CAs currently representing over 22 % of the Commission’s workforce. Although contractual staff is only supposed to perform “non-core tasks”, they do the work of permanent officials without being recognised accordingly. Moreover, there is an increase in harassment cases associated to tensions between permanent officials and CAs. The petitioner therefore demands the elimination of structural unfairness and the implementation of the principle of “equal pay for equal work”. To this end, she proposes a series of measures to improve the working conditions of CAs, including permanent contracts for those working on permanent tasks, fair reclassification rates, better access to the EU institutions internal job market and preferential recruitment over external applicants.

We will keep you posted on this action and related events. In the meantime we have another petition, this time on the working conditions of our AST/SC colleagues, let’s show our solidarity with all colleagues disproportionately affected by the 2004 and 2014 staff reforms!