Strikes over exams for Commission contractors

By David Cronin

Date: 10/11/05

Some European Commission staff will be on strike today (10 November) over employment conditions for staff on fixed-term contracts.

But staff unions are split over whether the stoppage is warranted.

The industrial action has been called by Union Syndicale and Confédération Syndicale Européene (SFE), which together claim to represent just under half of the institution's officials.

The two unions object to a requirement that the Commission's short-term staff would have to sit examinations if they wish to have contracts for an indefinite period.

The Commission has opened up the possibility for some people working on fixed-term contracts to move to contracts of indefinite duration. The Commission had decided to make these contracts open also to external candidates. A call for "expression of interest" made by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) had resulted in 28,000 applications. But candidates will have to sit tests run by EPSO, which co-ordinates recruitment to EU bodies.

Dave Taylor, the SFE's political secretary, said: "We don't think staff who already work somewhere should be put on the same footing as someone who is completely unknown to the institution." He estimated that up to 4,000 staff were affected by the requirement.

A slightly larger grouping of another six unions in the Commission, the Alliance of Free Trade Unions, is refusing to support the strike.

Gina Dricot from the Syndicat des Fonctionnaires Internationaux et Européens (SFIE) said that the strike was not justified, given that talks on improving the conditions of the staff in question were still going on.

Claude Chêne, the Commission's director-general for personnel and administration, said the Commission was being "very generous". He said that it would be wrong to exempt current short-term staff from the tests. "The Commission considers that it cannot agree to this request as it would bring into question the principle of offering contracts of an indefinite duration on the basis of open, transparent and non-discriminatory procedures," he wrote in a letter to staff.

Many of the 800 short-term staff working for the Commission's delegations outside the EU are thought likely to participate in the strike.

Article reports on a strike by some European Commission staff planned for 10 November over employment conditions for staff on fixed-term contracts. Two unions, which claimed to reperesent just under half of the European Commission's staff, objected to a requirement that the Commission's short-term staff would have to sit examinations if they wish to have contracts for an indefinite period.