R&D’s CAMPAIGN FOR TRADE UNION UNITY AND AGAINST PRECARIOUS CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
5. BECOMING AN OFFICIAL
The introduction of the “Contractual Agent” status at the time of the Kinnock reform of 2004 has been utterly disastrous for all staff who are now Contractual Agents. Everybody agrees, and they are even prepared to put it in writing, but not so many have done what we must all do now – Contractual Agents (CAs) and officials alike – and mount a challenge. R&D here sets out its work, its ambitions and its undertakings in a series of five flyers. This flyer deals with becoming an official.
Compensating for CAs’ salary losses
The Contractual Agent status has real limitations of which the CAs themselves are now well aware. Only access to the status of official enables them to acquire genuine career prospects, and in ten years’ time, 50% of current officials will have to be replaced. R&D defends the European Civil Ser- vice, because without a Civil Service, there will be no Administration. And without an Administration, there will be no justification for the jobs. And without the jobs, there will be no career prospects for Contractual Agents. Retired officials must be replaced by officials; they must not be transformed into resources to recruit more underpaid Contractual Agents.
Internal competitions for CAs? Pure demagogy!
Article 29.3 of the Staff Regulations could not be clearer: the internal competition is not open to Con- tractual Agents. Any electoral proposal to the contrary is demagogic, or else it will involve a fresh review of the Regs, and that will be disastrous given the current crisis.
R&D will help colleagues to succeed in the competitions To achieve this, R&D has successfully negotiated:
particular jobs and a needs analysis to plan the competitions as well as possible; a new generation of competitions more suitable for professionals; free training courses, a website, and a work programme – all provided by R&D.
Several competitions have already been planned, particularly in the Secretariat (EU2 and EU10 in 2009, and EU27 from 2010 onwards, and so on). R&D will continue to put large resources into such areas as training for the competition, the work programme and the website.