Local Workers Teachers and Phantoms

Currently a new version of Social Dialogue's Framework Agreement (FWA) is being negotiated between the trade unions and Admin. The FWA lays out the basic rules under which the two sides deal with one another.

Last year, SID suggested 18 changes to the draft FWA. All of which go in the general direction of more democracy at work. Here is one, as an example.

When the Commission hires child minders and other workers locally, it imposes an "Employment Contract between the European Commission and Mr. X" on them.

Article 8 reads "This contract does not give the employee the right to be considered as a servant of the Commission in the sense of Regulation 259/68 published in OJ (L 56) of March 4, 1968. The employee's only status is that of a private employee under Luxembourgish law."

You will notice how this Article 8 takes back what is promised in the title of the contract.

Where does that leave poor Mr. X? Well, the 8 Commission unions are not able to defend his interests because he is some kind of "phantom" colleague who has no right to make an Article 90 complaint or to appeal to the Civil Service Tribunal.

Since he can neither vote, nor stand or run in staff elections, they don't care too much about Mr. X.

The OGBL, LCGB, SNEP-R, UEL, NGL cannot afford to give him substantial support
because the rules here at the Commission are very different from Luxembourgish labour law.

There are less than a thousand EDLs/ODLs, so even if they all join one and the same local union, their dues will not be enough to cover the expense of hiring a specialist in Commission-law to defend their interests.

Another difficulty; the salaries and pensions of the EDLs/ODLs come from taxes that EU citizens pay. A local union with 99% national income taxpayers and 1% EU civil servants cannot be expected to fight hard for the 1%.

Oh, one more thing.

Remember the "Protocol on Privileges and Immunities"? Well, one of the Commission's privileges is that it is immune from national labour law. So poor old Mr. X. can join all the unions in Benelux, as long as Article 8 and the Protocol remain in force, he has no readily enforceable rights at work.

That protocol should be renamed "Protocol on the Privilege of the Commission Bosses to be Immune from the Law".

We are asking that Article 8 should be altered to allow the local colleagues full rights
under the Framework Agreement. Given good will, this is easy to do and costs no money at all.

Just drop Article 8 from the local colleagues' contracts and stop imposing it on new recruits.