If You Think Your Pockets are Empty, Ask a Laureate[1]

The Reform brought cuts to starting salaries that were not accompanied by any reduction in working time or by an easing of entry conditions. They amounted to at least 20% of the old base salary, depending on the particular circumstances. Please understand that those cuts come on top of the previously discussed 17.5% that we loose by the year 2011. If anything, demands on young people joining the EU civil service are rising. One example is that new officials now have to prove proficiency in a third language before receiving their first promotion. The new recruitment policy is just another example of the “more for less” policy of the Reform – more manpower for less money.

However, there were some 25 lucky new colleagues who barely escaped the salary axe and the third-language hurdle thanks to an unusual flexibility on the part of the (mal)administration. Traditionally, the Commission has recruited on the 1^st and 16^th of the month, but between 17^th to 30^th April this year, it made over two dozen exceptions to the rule, giving them the full (old) starting salary[2]. When questioned about this by Paul van Buitenen, MEP, a Commissioner admitted that twenty of the cases were exceptions and went on to add that “The five other recruitments were authorised, exceptionally, either following administrative delay or to meet an imperative need.”[3] Indeed, quite an imperative need, that cannot wait two weeks for the next scheduled round of recruitment and forces an exception to the exception to the rule. Of course, it is good that at least those 25 were spared the budget cuts. But why weren’t more young colleagues spared? Why not all of them?

Some of our new colleagues are fighting back by forming their own pressure group which can be visited at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ECC-Laureates2002/ . With this one act, they have achieved more than all the groaners and complainers. Better yet; this is only a beginning of organized, thought-out resistance to injustice. True, the maladministration disposes of more financial and human resources than the Laureates, but then Goliath was a lot bigger than David.

There are two long-term forces helping the Laureates to wring fair salaries from the Disappointing Authority; the demographic decline and the problems revealed by the Pisa studies[4] work in favour of the new recruits. There are less and less young Europeans every year, making the demand for jobs in the EU civil service decline. The weaknesses in the education systems of some Member States, as documented in the Pisa Study, mean that out of the fewer candidates in our competive exams, still fewer will pass. There have already been the first few bottlenecks in recruiting lawyers and linguists with rare profiles. The Secretary General of the European Parliament may have had that in mind when he told the European Voice; “I accept that budgets have been cut but reducing the attractiveness of posts in the EU smacks of short-termism.”[5]

In the long-term, the problems in Europe’s schools and its population decline are powerful social changes, but these changes need not be negtive. Their force needs to be channeled to bring general benefit. If you want to benefit from the power of the wind you need to build yourself a windmill first. You want solar energy? Sure; just install some solar collectors. To claim that a small union like ours can stand the EU on its head would be preposterous. But we can try to position ourselves so that staff will benefit from the ongoing changes. It is in general untrue that, when the supply of labour declines while the demand rises, salaries will be increased by some fabulous invisible hand. The hand that must intervene is visible, and palpable, right there, at the end of your arm. Now, use that hand of yours.

The ECC-Laureates2002 have shown us all a way forward; they don’t just complain, they organize. We are proud to have them as colleagues and support them and their demands.