Commission’s ‘savage’ cuts infuriate language teachers

By Martin Banks

Date: 24/06/04

THE European Commission has axed a 43-strong team of language teachers at less than two weeks' notice.

The staff, who teach various languages to EU officials, received letters this week saying that their contracts would be terminated from 1 July. The Commission says the work can be done at half the price by language schools.

But the announcement has incensed staff unions representing the workers, who say it came "completely out of the blue".

EU officials were planning to join the teachers today (24 June) in a protest demonstration outside the Commission's Breydel building.

A total of 32 different languages, ranging from English and German to Russian and Japanese, are provided on courses for Commission staff.

Language teachers employed by the Commission are responsible for about half of the courses, with the rest provided by language schools.

Since 1999 the Commission has replaced retiring teachers with courses taught by external language schools. Hörst Reichenbach, director-general for personnel and administration, said in a letter to staff that the Commission had decided to accelerate "what has already been a progressive change".

Eva Sagler, one of the teachers' delegates, said they had been given less than two weeks' notice of their dismissal.

She said the Commission had reneged on an agreement that the teachers' jobs were guaranteed until they retired.

"These promises have been broken. Not once during the internal reform process were the teachers informed in any way of the thinking behind it."

Reichenbach said that the teachers would receive "substantial redundancy payments depending on length of service".

The Alliance of Free Trade Unions, which comprises five staff unions, branded the cuts "savage" and called for the dismissal notices to be withdrawn.

A spokesman commented: "With this attack on staff who've provided up to 30 years' loyal service, one wonders how far the Commission is prepared to go and who their next victims will be."

Michael Mann, spokesman for Neil Kinnock, the commissioner responsible for internal reform, said the move to lay-off the teachers was a "common-sense" decision.

He said a recent survey had shown that Commission staff who had received tuition provided by language schools were as satisfied with the quality of the lessons as those who had been taught by its own language teachers.

Mann said that in 2003 the Commission provided 885 courses in 32 languages at a cost of €4.75 million. If all these had been provided by language schools, "the cost would have been 2.1m euro".

"The hourly cost of lessons provided by individual teachers is more than three times as much as language schools."

While accepting that staff had been given only two weeks' notice, he said they had been offered a generous nine-month indemnity, meaning they would be paid for nine months for not working. "This is a sensible use of public funds," he said, denying that staff had ever been guaranteed that their jobs would be safe until the end of their working lives.

The European Commission has decided to exclusively use external language training schools rather than employ staff to train Commission in languages.