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. Continue reading Post-reform Equal Pay Day
Staff Categories
DG TRANSLATION: Kids of a lesser god or just the preview of the EC of the future?
Since 2004 the European Union has massively increased in population, number of Member States and languages, and has further expanded its activities in various domains too. In order to cope with this new challenge, the Commission’s administration has increased its staff albeit not in direct proportion to the population increase, thus striking a wise balance between new duties and the budgetary possibilities.
The budgetary effort, though, took a very heavy toll on all newcomers, those who now must sadly bear the labels Generation 2004 and Generation 2014 staff. Our salary conditions, pension perspectives, career structure, precariousness of working status and very reasonable fringe pre-2004 benefits were affected adversely by two subsequent reforms of the staff regulations in 2004 and 2014. Continue reading DG TRANSLATION: Kids of a lesser god or just the preview of the EC of the future?
CA Dossier: Is the current situation sustainable?
As mentioned in our communication sent at the beginning of April, Generation 2004 is disappointed by the outcome of the Conciliation meeting that took place on 6 April to discuss the General Implementing Rules of the staff regulations for Contract Agents. You might wonder why we give so much importance to these negotiations. After all, one could argue that they are only about implementing rules, not about the future of the EU civil service. However, we do see a direct link here, because we sense this is part of a silent revolution that replaces more and more permanent officials with Contract Agents so that according to our estimates by 2030 non-permanent staff with precarious contracts will represent more than half of all the staff of the institutions. The most striking data about this creeping change come from the annual reports of our sickness scheme (the latest one covering the year 2015 – available on demand). Continue reading CA Dossier: Is the current situation sustainable?
Outcome of the Conciliation meeting on the implementing rules for CAs
Yesterday trade unions and staff associations met in a “Conciliation” meeting with Commissioner Oettinger to discuss the General Implementing Rules that will govern how the staff regulations will be implemented in the Commission with respect to Contract Agents (both 3a – Contract Agents with an indefinite duration contract – and 3b – Contract Agents with a limited duration contract of no more than 6 years). The Conciliation phase is the highest level in the negotiations between the staff representation and the Commission. Indeed, Commissioner Oettinger was representing the entire College of Commissioners in these negotiations, not just his position or that of DG HR. Continue reading Outcome of the Conciliation meeting on the implementing rules for CAs
Outrage over EC approaching 1000 senior experts/senior assistants’ nominations – widening career gap and waste of precious administration budget
The 2014 staff regulations introduced the so-called “career cap” (blocage des carrières in French). Regular ASTs and ADs who have no management responsibilities cannot reach grades above AST9 and AD12. At least in principle, see the next article on career inequalities which shows that the career cap does not apply to several thousand pre-2004 officials …
The 2014 Staff Regulations also introduced a special career path for those who are supposedly experts in their field, the so-called “senior assistant” and “senior expert” posts. Most of us know that these titles are nothing but a reward for those who have been in place for a long time, nothing to do with actual qualifications!
We have just received an update from DG HR on the number of nominations to these posts and on the resulting promotions since 1 Jan 2014.
A staggering 820 permanent officials have benefited from nominations to these high-ranking positions during the past 3 years. With the current trend, we should reach over 1000 officials in these positions before the end of this year.
Because these nominations open the way to promotions to grades beyond the AST9 and AD12 cap, we can expect that most of these lucky colleagues will reach the AST11 and the AD14 grades in a few years’ time. More than 500 of them have already benefited from promotions to AST10, AST11, AD13 or AD14 during the past 3 years.
The budgetary impact of these generosity is not public yet but a back-of-the envelope calculation suggests that it will be on the order of several million euros/year (a promotion implies a pay rise of about 13% if one neglects the steps; 13% of €10,000/month for 1000 people gives about €16 million/year; we don’t have yet access to the financial fiche of the draft General Implementation Provisions for Contract Agents, but we reckon that DG BUDG is trying to save a similar amount on the back of the Contract Agents, through for instance their downgrading at the occasion of a change of contract).
While it is encouraging to see that DG HR is becoming more transparent with this “senior something” scheme, it raises a difficult issue: how can the Commission afford to spend so much money to boost the careers of officials who are already ultra-privileged while cutting on every other possible expenses?
Don’t forget that the lucky “senior something” will not only enjoy higher salaries but they will also benefit from higher pensions since pensions are directly proportional to the last year of salary. When you consider that the pension liability had reached €57 billion at the end of 2014 (footnote 15, page 6) you start worrying, don’t you? You won’t be the only ones to be worried about the sustainability of our pension scheme, the Council is getting worried too and this is not good news for us! In particular, the Council conclusion #8 “requests that the Commission … reports … on the long-term sustainability of the EU pension scheme, taking into consideration … an evaluation of the pension accumulation rate, the staff contribution rate of 1/3 to the pension system, including for existing staff,…… and to propose appropriate policy measures … to ensure the sustainability of the scheme.“.
Read the Council’s lips: more cuts to the pension rights of “existing staff“. Most of those nominated to “senior something” posts during the past 3 years will have escaped from active service before the situation becomes unbearable (they will no longer be “existing staff“…) but those of you who have been recruited after the 2004 reform, or worse after the 2014 reform, will be targeted once again! In this context, one would expect DG HR to be more cautious with the “senior something” scheme.
Growing inequalities in the Institutions
Oxfam, the well-known international confederation of charitable organizations has recently published its annual report on social inequalities. What about inequalities in the EU institutions? Since the infamous Kinnock reform of 2004, inequalities have greatly increased in the EU civil service. Before the Kinnock reform, careers of non-management staff were limited to the equivalent of AD12.
For a decade, between 2004 and 2013, this upper limit became AD14. The 2014 staff regulations re-introduced the AD12 cap, but in the meantime, more than 2000 ADs had managed to sneak in to the AD13 grade and another 500 to the AD14 grade, most of them without taking managerial responsibilities. Moreover, the 2014 Staff Regulations did not put an end to what could be perceived as an overly generous scheme: Continue reading Growing inequalities in the Institutions
General Implementation Provisions for Contract Agents: a compromise which leads NOWHERE
The saga of the discussions on the General Implementing Provisions (GIP) for Contract agents (CA) seems to have lasted for ages. Generation 2004 has followed it for you in a number of articles (see here and here).
The culmination came some weeks ago at a meeting of the social dialogue chaired by VP Georgieva (concertation politique in French) – one of her last actions before her departure to the World Bank.
Generation 2004 expressed a position that is crystal clear. The so-called compromise is NOT acceptable to us. It fails to address our main concern: the new initial classification grid for CAs which we see as the core of the problem. Continue reading General Implementation Provisions for Contract Agents: a compromise which leads NOWHERE
Our letter to Ms Souka on Contract Agents
Access the letter in pdf.
You are hired/fired: Recruitment trends at the Commission!
As can be seen from recent statistics (see table), the only category of staff that is currently still growing is the Contract Agent (CA) category. Looking at the data and comparing this growth with the recent trend in the recruitment of permanent officials (‘fonctionnaires‘), we can conclude that the Commission has begun a process of replacing permanent officials with CAs [1]. Continue reading You are hired/fired: Recruitment trends at the Commission!
The dark side of new “General Implementing Provisions for Contract Agents”
On 8th July, DG HR has presented the draft of the new General Implementing Provisions (GIP) For Contract Agents (CAs)[1] to DGs and staff representatives, and on 10th September OSPs have been convoked to a social dialogue meeting to express opinions on it.
Even if this decision is meant to clarify and to implement a position already taken by the EC (cfr. Commission Decision 2011), the feedback DG HR received was almost in unison from all OSPs: a text lacking of transparency and clarity, very hard to understand for non-lawyers (and particularly for non-FR speaking) and still missing a concrete policy for CAs. Continue reading The dark side of new “General Implementing Provisions for Contract Agents”
