Art. 90/2: Complaint for Salary Adjustment

Wednesday you might have received a flyer of a trade union in Ispra about a so called article 90/2 complaint regarding the salary adjustment.
R&D Ispra will not join this proposed Art.90/2 procedure for both the content and the form.
Regarding the content we want to stress that in this case there is no point submitting a complaint against the Commission. An art.90/2 complaint can be only submitted to the appointing authority (and in our case it is the Commission) against an act affecting us adversely, either where the said authority has taken a decision or where it has failed to adopt a measure prescribed by the Staff Regulations. As already communicated many times, based on a Commission proposal, it is the Council that decides (and not the Commission). For these reasons it might be clear that an art. 90/2 complaint on annual adjustment of remuneration should not be submitted to the Commission but to the Council, which is not possible for Commission staff.
Regarding the form we consider that submitting a complaint against the Commission is the wrong strategy. This is a burden for the Institution that went to Court to defend our interests. It is similar to suing your own lawyer before a court case is held in which he will defend you free of charge. 
We believe that the current strategy of a combined effort of all unions of European Institutions will have much more impact than the proposed propaganda of a small and local trade union.  In this respect we want to remind you of the by all trade unions signed letter of January 11 addressed to President Barroso: it was proposed to create a group composed by the trade unions of all institutions and the Commission in order to jointly pursue the issue (http://rd.jrc.it/IT/Dossier/1/RD/20100111_Note%20unitaire%20à%20M.%20BARROSO.pdf). Though we are impatient as well, we still believe that this common approach is the best and for the moment we'll have to wait for the Court case.
Reflection:
For further information go to http://myintracomm.ec.europa.eu/hr_admin/en/appeals/Pages/index.aspx. (Special attention for: "However, officials filing such requests and complaints often do so because they are not familiar with the applicable law...").You might consider that signing the art. 90(2) complaint doesn't harm. Attention: it is not just a petition but indeed a formal complaint.

Newsletter 1/2010