Whirlpool Factory Outlet: discounts for all staff
NAME and SURNAME – RD ISPRA
Whirlpool factory outlet will update you about special offers and events.
Annual salary update
Last week, R&D
attended the GTR (Groupe Technique Rémunération) meeting in Brussels, during
which Eurostat and DG HR announced the figures of the 2015 salary update.
The overall effect on salaries for Ispra-based staff will be an increase of 1,41%, as explained in detail below. The adjustment will be applied retroactively as from July 2015 and will be paid with the December salary slip.
The salary table will increase by 2,4% for all statutory staff (AD, AST, AST/SC and CA) in all duty stations. This is the combined result of the increase of cost of living in Brussels and the increase in purchasing power of national administration civil servants of 11 reference Member States.
For the staff posted outside Brussels, the salary is also affected by the Correction Coefficient (CC). In Ispra, our CC will decrease from 93,1 to 92,2 due to the fact that inflation in the Varese area has been lower than that of Brussels.
The current pension contribution rate will not change.
We remind you that this is the first annual salary adaptation since the reform, as the salaries were frozen in both 2013 and 2014.
A few further observations we have taken from the discussions we had with Eurostat:
The overall effect on salaries for Ispra-based staff will be an increase of 1,41%, as explained in detail below. The adjustment will be applied retroactively as from July 2015 and will be paid with the December salary slip.
The salary table will increase by 2,4% for all statutory staff (AD, AST, AST/SC and CA) in all duty stations. This is the combined result of the increase of cost of living in Brussels and the increase in purchasing power of national administration civil servants of 11 reference Member States.
For the staff posted outside Brussels, the salary is also affected by the Correction Coefficient (CC). In Ispra, our CC will decrease from 93,1 to 92,2 due to the fact that inflation in the Varese area has been lower than that of Brussels.
The current pension contribution rate will not change.
We remind you that this is the first annual salary adaptation since the reform, as the salaries were frozen in both 2013 and 2014.
A few further observations we have taken from the discussions we had with Eurostat:
- This year, the CC of 28 locations decreased, it went slightly up in only 3 places
- For the first time since many years, the Rome CC goes under 100 at 99,4!
- The Eurostat figures show for the first time a reversal in the rent prices 2014-2015 trend: rent prices increase in Varese and decrease in Brussels. If this movement carries on the next years, it will drive our Varese CC upwards
Early detection screening - PMO, who do think you are kidding?
But the truth is different; it is only a question of immediate cost savings, and in fact the screening programmes have been drastically reduced to the detriment of staff health! And we thought the staff was "the Commission's most important and valuable resource" as defined by Vice-President Georgieva (Commission en direct, issue 21, pag. 46).
R&D takes this unwelcome change very seriously and its elected members in the LSC are committed to fight strongly for the reintroduction of the regime as it was previously.
PMO's miracle
"Because prevention is better than cure", as stated in the PMO newsletter itself, "the screening programmes have been adapted to reflect this" and "some diseases, such as cancer, can be treated more easily if they are detected early".
At PMO they can clearly do miracles! They are able to improve prevention by reducing the level and the frequency of examinations compared to what was available until 30th June 2015.
R&D's analysis of the "improvements"
Up to 45 years NO ACCESS to the programmes at all, since:
- the programme is accessible "only for members not in active employment at one of the European institutions, as well as for children over the age of 18."
and
- for those not in active employment, i.e. partners and children over the age of 18 years old, the administrative notice n. 25-2015 of 13.10.2015 states: "JSIS members' attention is drawn to the fact that JSIS beneficiaries with top-up coverage (in complementarity) will be required to request reimbursement from their primary insurance scheme before claiming supplementary reimbursement from JSIS for the cost of their health screening examinations"
- program for children below 16 years old completely disappeared. With the current rules children below 18 years old don't have access to any program.
Between 45 and 59 years all the most relevant analyses and checks DISAPPEARED:
- All women – no annual gynaecological visit any more with the PAP test (the same rules as stated above, i.e. for staff members not in active employment)
- Women between 45 and 59 years – not any more: 1. internist examination, 2. cardiac examination, 3. gynaecological examination, 4. PAP test, 5. mammography, 6. X-ray of chest, 7. complete ultrasound of abdomen, 8. ultrasound of breasts, 9. ORL examination (nose, ear, throat), 10. colonoscopy
- Men between 45 and 59 years – not any more: 1. internist examination, 2. cardiac examination allowed only in certain conditions, 3. ORL examination (nose, ear, throat), 4. X-ray of chest, 5. complete ultrasound of abdomen, 6. urological examination, colonoscopy (from the age of 50 allowed three faecal occult blood tests or one virtual colonoscopy).
In practice, what remains is the same routine check that we already do annually at our internal medical service, i.e. some blood and urine analyses, visit with general practitioner and ophthalmological examination. Nothing else.
R&D's position on these changes
We wonder if this new implementation is in contradiction with the art. 72 of the Staff Regulations, as also confirmed by Court ruling n.T-191/01 stating:
"….By the very fact that, pursuant to Article 72 of the Staff Regulations, the costs of screening for serious illnesses are reimbursed at 100%...."
The aim of that provision is thus to encourage screening for serious illnesses in order to ensure effective treatment at an early stage, thereby helping to prevent both the development of serious illnesses in the interests of the patient, and higher treatment costs for the Joint Sickness Insurance Scheme."
"…. would be contrary to the requirement for effective preventive medicine and, consequently, to the sound management of the health protection scheme provided for in the Staff Regulations, in keeping with the aim pursued by Article 72(1) of the Staff Regulations."
These new rules are also in apparent contradiction with the recently widely advertised Fit@work programme, according to which "The strategy would be to focus on disease prevention and health promotion…." because "The financial costs of absences and invalidity, the productivity losses, and the individual's suffering due to health issues are also potentially significant."
Furthermore, PMO made these changes in secret without any consultation of the staff representatives, based only on the suggestions of the Scheme's Medical Council as the following extract from the CGAM annual report for the year 2014 reads: "the Medical Council has decided to bring the overlap between the employer's obligations and the preventive examinations to an end, thus resulting in a clear cost reduction with regards to EU staff in activity (aged up to 45 years). On the substance of programmes, one should note that some examinations will be performed in a more cost-effective way. From 1st July 2015, complementarity will also fully apply to preventive medicine, meaning that the JSIS will only reimburse to beneficiaries under complementary cover what their primary insurance doesn't cover."
To the contrary R&D believe this is a false economy - a possibly reduced saving today may become a higher cost tomorrow to the detriment of all our colleagues
Property abroad: Italian tax declaration or not?
Lately we received
information that colleagues who have consulted a local tax adviser (commercialista)
regarding the obligation to make an Italian tax declaration possibly received
the wrong advice. In the cases we are aware of the tax adviser told these
colleagues that he or she had to declare to the Italian authorities all
properties in their possession in countries other than Italy. We believe this
advice is only valid if the colleague has his or her domicile for tax purposes
in Italy, but it is wrong in case the domicile for tax purposes is not in
Italy.
According to Article 13 (ex Article
14) of the PROTOCOL
(No 7) ON THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION for Statutory
staff their domicile for tax purposes is the country of domicile for tax
purposes at the time of entering the service of the Union (in practice it is
typically the country of your last tax declaration before entering the service
- if in doubt it is clearly indicated in the personal file in Sysper).
Furthermore, both the country of your actual residence and the country of
domicile for tax purposes must consider that you have maintained your domicile
in the latter country (provided that it is a member of the Union) - therefore,
if you have your domicile for tax purposes in an EU country other than Italy
you should do your tax declaration there and not in Italy.
To add insult to injury, not only has the
incorrect advice been given - leading to possible issues with the Italian
authorities - our unfortunate colleagues have also been billed for the advice
and the work. We therefore take the opportunity to remind our colleagues that
not all local tax advisers will have the necessary experience or knowledge to
deal with special situations such as these, so always be careful and seek help
from well-informed sources.
A very useful
document containing advice on many taxation matters related to EU personnel,
"EUROPEAN UNION OFFICIALS AND TAXATION, IMPACT OF THE PROTOCOL ON
PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES ON THEIR TAX STATUS", may be found in Myintracomm.
A EU Tribunal ruling that affects promotions and careers of all AST and AD grades?
In
the Anagnostu Case (F-72/11) the Tribunal stipulated that the Commission
has incorrectly applied the rules concerning the
promotions rates imposed by the Staff Regulations. Indeed, DG HR has for
years applied arbitrary promotion rates, which have been systematically and
unlawfully imposed on
the Joint Promotion Committee since 2004. R&D members decisively contributed to the collective action,
which follows exactly the position R&D has been advocating for years in the Joint Promotion
Committee as well as through communications to the staff and letters to both the Commission and the Administration (see Promotion
exercise and quotas). R&D remains
convinced that this is serious problem that affects considerably the staff
of ALL
grades and categories and will continue to act in close collaboration with other Trade Unions
and the Central Staff Committee in order to undertake all collective, necessary and urgent actions to bring the issue yet again to the awareness of the College.
JRC Ispra and "Dieselgate"
Read the full article (Nature)
On the same topic:
Article from the Italian press (Corriere della Sera)
Article from VareseNews
Article from El Mundo
In our opinion this underlines once again the importance of the independence of our laboratories at the JRC.
R&D analysis of the FP7 ex-post evaluation
The DG of the JRC Mr Sucha has invited staff representatives
and Trade Unions to comment on the findings of the “Ex-post evaluation of
the direct actions of the Joint Research Centre under the seventh
framework programme 2007-2013” (Cunningham
Report).
Despite an extremely tight deadline (four working days..)
R&D has analysed the report and formulated a series of 10 Priority Actions,
which had been proposed to the Management in occasion of today’s Directoire
Meeting.
Although we are
aware such a work would require a larger and longer consultation, we accepted
the challenge launched by the DG. Thanks to the work already anticipated by the
thematic R&D groups, and thanks to the joint effort of the R&D
committee, we believe that the analysis made and the action proposed are in
line with our hearts and brains.
Times are difficult and courage and leadership are
scarce and limited resources in the JRC.
R&D embraces its societal responsibility as trade
union carrying the Renewal and Development in its name. Based on these two
principles, we proactively promote a culture open to change and
innovation, while protecting at the same time staff individual rights in
all relevant areas.
Please participate in this process and make your
voices heard!
Hearsay regarding transfer of activities
Announcements in a chatroom cannot substitute real dialogue in the light of major changes dramatically affecting many of our colleagues!
******
Mr Sucha's reply of 17th September.
******
NEW!!!!!!
Our new letter of 24th September on the subject.
Visit of VP Georgieva to Ispra
As staff representatives we explained to the VP
that, following the outcome of the Staff Satisfaction Survey, particular
attention should be given to “career” and “well-being”.
Specifically, the LSC delegation put forward several concrete ideas to the VP. As the JRC is a very complex DG spread over six sites, having staff naturally predisposed towards innovation, it may provide an ideal environment to become a social and organisational test-bed for the whole Commission to promote innovative and creative solutions in favour of improved well-being and productivity. The LSC delegation advanced two proposals: the “Mobility Market” (i.e., easier staff mobility as a normal practice by means of new rules and tools) and the provision of tools such as cloud storage or Connected to be made available and accessible to all staff anytime/everywhere. The LSC President stressed that too often (cyber)security, safety and data protection are used as insurmountable excuses to block otherwise desirable initiatives: flexibility requires an assumption of responsibility, and sometimes it's much more convenient to simply apply rules in a very restrictive way. This overly strict interpretation of rules often brings to inadequate implementation of IT tools causing inaccessibility - or difficult/limited access - from locations other than a desktop Commission PC.
In addition, the LSC President advanced the
request to support – under the umbrella of the Fit@work programme the VP
launched earlier in May – the construction of a new multipurpose Sports Hall to
replace the current very inadequate and obsolete tensostructure.
It was also
mentioned that, following an explicit request of our Director General, the LSC
is collecting ideas to increase the Ispra site attractiveness - feel
free to send us your own ideas: our staff representatives will bring them
to the attention of the LSC!
Overall, also thanks to the very constructive
dialogue of your staff representatives, we believe that the VP left Ispra with
a good impression of the JRC, its staff, and its activities.
STAFF SURVEY 2014: ALARMING RESULTS
The "Staff Satisfaction Survey
2014" results are more than worrying and confirm the profound demotivation
of the colleagues and the deterioration of the atmosphere within the services. The
message sent by the staff is crystal clear and unambiguous: our institution must
completely change its methods and practices.
R&D invites you to know more and
discuss the results on
Monday 08
June 2015
12.45 -14.30
IHCP room –
101/1302
Videolink with Brussels and other
sites
During the conference Mr Jerome
Maybon (Executive Partner at Agility-Board)
will provide his analysis of the Staff Survey 2014.
New Mechanism For Independent Scientific Advice - and the JRC?
Today Commissioner Moedas announced in a Press Conference about the new mechanism for independent scientific advice in the European Commission.
In an information note addressed to the College of Commissioners - written in agreement with the President and the first Vice-President - he states that ... the new scientific advice mechanism will receive operational support from DG Research and Innovation as the lead service, who will ensure close collaboration with other Commission services, including the Secretariat General, the European Political Strategy Centre, the Joint Research Centre, and those services responsible for existing specialist scientific advisory bodies.
On the same topic, see also the inputs given by Anne Glover and our Director General on Future Directions for Scientific Advice in Europe and the analysis given by ScienceInsider.
R&D has been following the debate that has been going on inside the Commission since the abolition of the Chief Scientific Adviser role last year (see our previous letters sent to his attention).
We are working on our position and welcome any comments you may have on this very important and sensitive topic.
Legionella in building 101
NOTE TO THE ATTENTION OF
MS I. SOUKA – DIRECTOR GENERAL OF HUMAN RESOURCES AND SECURITY
AND
MR V. SUCHA – DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
Subject: Legionella in building 101
We contact you as R&D Ispra and CISL-Fir since we received from concerned colleagues of the Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (IHCP) a message sent on 16 April 2015 (see attachment 1) by Mr Dan Chirondojan on
behalf of both the Ispra Site Management (ISM) and the Medical Service.
The case regards a previous message (attachment 2) sent on 17 March by JRC ISPRA INFOPOINT 100-101 to all staff of building 101 stating that, due to extraordinary maintenance, no sanitary hot water would be available in
building 101. This message was repeated for several days (attachment 3) without further details about the purpose of the works.
One month later staff received the above cited message of Mr Dan Chirondojan mentioning that already on 17 March 2015 "Legionella bacteria was detected in one tap of the hot sanitary water of building 101. As precautionary
action, in consultation with the Medical Service, the hot water supply in all building 101 was immediately suspended and technical steps taken to ensure a sufficiently high operational water temperature to eradicate any
potential risk".
Though we appreciate the action immediately taken in March, we are deeply concerned about the non-communication of the detected Legionella contamination to the occupants of the IHCP building by both ISM and the
Medical Service. In addition the building concerned is also frequented by visitors of the many meetings that the IHCP is organising and appropriate information was not given to them either.
We would like, therefore that a proper and adequate communication flow to the staff will be re-established immediately, and all relevant information concerning the actions taken to detect the source of the problem (not made available yet) are urgently communicated to the JRC staff. Furthermore, we would like to know your opinion whether Art. 8.3 of the COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 98/83/EC on the quality of water intended for human consumption is applicable or not.
Parents' Association President: really sure you know the full facts?
Unfortunately, instead of getting first-hand information from a reliable and trustworthy source like the R&D website, he preferred to spread outdated information - aiming at contesting the validity of R&D initiative about the Garderie bus.
If he had checked the facts, he would have discovered that the Ispra Site Director on 2nd April confirmed to R&D that:
"The WG came back to COPAS with two main
recommendations:
- To address to CASS a request for additional budget; this was done and the response was to find a
solution locally, no additional budget
- To discuss with the parents benefiting of this
service and to convince
them to contribute to the financial support of the service"
For the sake of completeness, we include hereafter the unfortunate masterpiece of the president of AGSEV:
Subject:
|
Bus transportation from European school to the GARDERIE
|
Date:
|
Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:48:55 +0200
|
From:
|
parents association <parents.association@jrc.ec.europa.eu>
|
To:
|
parents association <parents.association@jrc.ec.europa.eu>
|
Dear
Parents,
We
have taken note of a communication in which it refers to bus transportation
from European school to the GARDERIE, communication which argues that "
the JRC management is ready to support the concept that in Ispra parents will
have to pay…" for this transport
This
information does not correspond to reality.
AGSEV has followed with deep attention this issue and we can then communicate that when the coop. of transports asked JRC management to intervene, if necessary, to give funds for this service, the Site Management has expressed its positive opinion.
LSC
also expressed a strongly positive opinion.
In addition, various trade unions were unreservedly in favour of financing this transport.
As AGSEV we had confirmation of this, through reading of the minutes of various meetings.
In addition, various trade unions were unreservedly in favour of financing this transport.
As AGSEV we had confirmation of this, through reading of the minutes of various meetings.
We remember that a specific working group has been made in order to propose solutions to the problem, and we are waiting for the results
As
Parents Association we are convinced that this transport should not be on
charge of JRC staff, as it is an activity of great social importance, given
also flexitime changes for JRC employee
We are aware that they are currently taking place vote for the renewal of the LSC. For this reason, we prefer not to mention the name of the trade union, to avoid any possible manipulation of the parents position.
We simply wish to inform you that, in light of the documents that we have read, the mentioned notice of 7th of April, does not correspond to reality.
We are aware that they are currently taking place vote for the renewal of the LSC. For this reason, we prefer not to mention the name of the trade union, to avoid any possible manipulation of the parents position.
We simply wish to inform you that, in light of the documents that we have read, the mentioned notice of 7th of April, does not correspond to reality.
Of course all documentation is available to
anyone want go in deep.
Best regards,AGSEV President
Best regards,AGSEV President
_______________
We cordially suggest that the president of AGSEV stops defending the administration and starts acting in the real interest of staff and parents: in case of need, R&D is ready to provide him all the necessary support.
ElectoParade
Since R&D works only with facts and not unfounded allegations, we here publish the proof that the issue regarding the representativeness of the list Seville Voice was generated 100% because of internal communication problems within Generation 2004 itself.
This is the message sent yesterday evening by a Generation 2004 representative at JRC Seville to his leader in Brussels (Stefan Grech - Chair, Generation 2004 adf):
From: [name deleted for reasons of privacy]
Sent: 09 April 2015 22:33
To: GRECH Stefan (CDP-OSP)
Cc: DI PIETROGIACOMO Maria Paola (JRC-SEVILLA)
Subject: Sevilla Voice list
Dear Stefan,
I understand your point that you do not like see Generation 2004 associated to the Seville Voice list. Paola has suggested to correct the pre-election declaration and to declare the 11% as independent, which I hope will resolve the issue. My apologies for my mistake and the trouble this has caused. Nevertheless, I believe that the protracted situation is partly caused by the absence of a local staff committee in Seville and I hope that we will see some progress on this in the near future.
Best wishes, [name deleted for reasons of privacy]
Sent: 09 April 2015 22:33
To: GRECH Stefan (CDP-OSP)
Cc: DI PIETROGIACOMO Maria Paola (JRC-SEVILLA)
Subject: Sevilla Voice list
Dear Stefan,
I understand your point that you do not like see Generation 2004 associated to the Seville Voice list. Paola has suggested to correct the pre-election declaration and to declare the 11% as independent, which I hope will resolve the issue. My apologies for my mistake and the trouble this has caused. Nevertheless, I believe that the protracted situation is partly caused by the absence of a local staff committee in Seville and I hope that we will see some progress on this in the near future.
Best wishes, [name deleted for reasons of privacy]
ElectoParade - Top Vergognation
To mitigate the anxiety of the above-mentioned Trade Unions for their imminent electoral results, we wish to issue them some prizes:1) Prize "TAOfazzi 2015" to TAO/AFI for its message explaining the reasons pushing all candidates from all Trade Unions to become staff representatives:
“to each of the 290 candidates we can associate one of the following reasons;
- To solve personal problem/s .
- Possibility of leaving the service without the obligation of justifying the absence.
- To create relationships with VIP (Director General, Commissioners,...) to gain personal benefit.
- Have access to confidential information.
- Power trip.
- Lack of motivation in the service.
- Don Quixote.
- Robin Hood.
- Take a "selfy" with a VIP to decorate the wall of his office.
- Travel (missions).
- Handle information.
- Indicate in the annual appraisal report "Completed tasks in the institution's interest."
- To bring votes in the list.
- Exhibitionism...”
Thanks to their extraordinary performance, TAO/AFI also wins the prize "Best LSC weakening action 2015" awarded by the Administration, and the gratitude of all candidates for finally making them feeling part of the same united body, sharing the same values and principles.
2) Prize "8 March" to USI for its public recognition of the hard work, commitment and dedication of Ms Paola Di Pietrogiacomo in favour of Seville staff.
3) Prize "Scajola 2015" to Generation 2004, which received a quota of representativeness from Seville Voice without his knowledge.
4) Prize "Dummy Bullhorn" to TAO/AFI and SAVE Europe for their sensationalistic relaunch of the alleged electoral fraud of Seville Voice.
5) Prize "Lapalissade" to SAVE Europe for its discovery that "voting for one Union or for another isn't the same thing".
6) Prize "Voglio vivere così..." to SAVE Europe for its accusation of camouflage to Seville Voice, when they present ISCA (100% SAVE Europe).
7) Prize "Coitus interruptus" to SAVE Europe for noticing only one out of four ex-Caterpillar candidates standing for elections.
For full climax, 2 are standing with R&D, 1 with Generation 2004, 1 with CISL and 4 are no longer candidates.
Many thanks to all these Trade Unions: we wish them a good electoral result to continue having fun!! ---)))
2) Prize "8 March" to USI for its public recognition of the hard work, commitment and dedication of Ms Paola Di Pietrogiacomo in favour of Seville staff.
3) Prize "Scajola 2015" to Generation 2004, which received a quota of representativeness from Seville Voice without his knowledge.
4) Prize "Dummy Bullhorn" to TAO/AFI and SAVE Europe for their sensationalistic relaunch of the alleged electoral fraud of Seville Voice.
5) Prize "Lapalissade" to SAVE Europe for its discovery that "voting for one Union or for another isn't the same thing".
6) Prize "Voglio vivere così..." to SAVE Europe for its accusation of camouflage to Seville Voice, when they present ISCA (100% SAVE Europe).
7) Prize "Coitus interruptus" to SAVE Europe for noticing only one out of four ex-Caterpillar candidates standing for elections.
For full climax, 2 are standing with R&D, 1 with Generation 2004, 1 with CISL and 4 are no longer candidates.
Many thanks to all these Trade Unions: we wish them a good electoral result to continue having fun!! ---)))
Bus European School Varese - Ispra Garderie
Are Ispra staff "children of a lesser God"?
Read on and judge for yourself!
NOTE TO THE ATTENTION OF MR D.C. CHIRONDOJAN
DIRECTOR OF THE ISPRA SITE (sent on 1/4/2015)
Subject:
Bus Transport from European School of Varese to Ispra Garderie
Dear Mr Chirondojan,
We
wish to come back to the issue of the bus transport from the European School of
Varese to the Ispra garderie, for which an acceptable long-term solution still
needs to be found.
Already
many months ago, some staff representatives exchanged messages urging all
parties involved to sit at a table together
with PMO in order to identify a solution that, according to our understanding,
could have been easily achieved.
To
our knowledge, this meeting with PMO
was never convened.
We
wish to draw your attention to the information published on MyIntracomm
about education allowances where it is clearly stated that “…your child is
attending one of the European
Schools (primary or secondary level) and using the school transport
service. In this case, it is imperative that you introduce an education
declaration via SYSPER each year to enable the PMO to pay the
organisation administering the school's transport service directly on your
behalf.”
There
is no doubt that PMO is indicated as the entity being in charge of paying
transport fees directly on behalf of Commission staff; no derogation for Ispra
or the JRC is mentioned.
Assuming
that PMO cannot pay for the transportation from the school to the garderie
conflicts with the provisions of Commission
Decision of 16 December 2013.
Declaration
of transportation to the garderie is available in Sysper (see annex), and this
service is commonly available in Brussels (see for instance the rules of bus
transport of the following schools: UCCLE, WOLUWE, IXELLES, LAEKEN).
Following
an inquiry to PMO, we have received further confirmation that the route home-->school-->garderie
is fully covered by PMO itself for parents who are entitled to receive an
education allowance from the 1st primary year onwards, without any need for
these parents to contribute to it.
We understand that at Ispra a proposal to relapse the cost of this bus transport to parents benefiting from this service – via an OIB increase of garderie fees – is under discussion.
As R&D, we strongly regret any deviation from practices applied in the rest of the Institution, and we would regret even more a solution ending up in additional unjustified costs for parents at Ispra – further penalising Ispra staff compared to the rest of Commission staff, and reducing the Ispra site attractiveness.
For the reasons above we urge you, once again, in your capacity of Ispra site Director and President of COPAS, to take immediate contact with PMO and start looking for a real and permanent solution, within the current frame of Commission rules and practices, and without any unjustifiable budgetary impact on concerned staff.
Kind regards,
Hans Nieman
Vice-President
Cc: J.P.
Michel, R.
Crandon, A.
Koletsos, V.
Sucha
Reply from Mr Chirondojan (received on 2 April 2015)
Dear Mr.Nieman,
Dear Mr.Nieman,
Thank you for your message.
I would like to inform you that the issue of the bus transport from Varese to Ispra Garderie was intensively discussed in the last three meetings of COPAS. You might know that in order to ensure the continuity of the service for 2015, COPAS decided and I implemented this decision to allocate 35K EURO from COPAS budget to the Cooperativa managing the service. Moreover we decided to establish a Working Group (WG) that looked further into this issue aiming to find a long-term solution. The WG came back to COPAS with two main recommendations:
I would like to inform you that the issue of the bus transport from Varese to Ispra Garderie was intensively discussed in the last three meetings of COPAS. You might know that in order to ensure the continuity of the service for 2015, COPAS decided and I implemented this decision to allocate 35K EURO from COPAS budget to the Cooperativa managing the service. Moreover we decided to establish a Working Group (WG) that looked further into this issue aiming to find a long-term solution. The WG came back to COPAS with two main recommendations:
- To address to CASS a request for additional budget; this was done and the response was to find a solution locally, no additional budget
- To discuss with the parents benefiting of this service and to convince them to contribute to the financially support of the service
The WG has discussed with PMO, but no solution was identified.
If you state that you "have received further confirmation that the route home > school > garderie is fully covered by PMO itself for parents who are entitled to receive an education allowance from the 1st primary year onwards, without any need for these parents to make any financial contribution", I would kindly ask you to communicate officially to COPAS members the solution identified with PMO and I invite you to the next meeting COPAS to present it. Based on the discussions in the plenary, the COPAS Committee can decide further actions.
- To discuss with the parents benefiting of this service and to convince them to contribute to the financially support of the service
The WG has discussed with PMO, but no solution was identified.
If you state that you "have received further confirmation that the route home > school > garderie is fully covered by PMO itself for parents who are entitled to receive an education allowance from the 1st primary year onwards, without any need for these parents to make any financial contribution", I would kindly ask you to communicate officially to COPAS members the solution identified with PMO and I invite you to the next meeting COPAS to present it. Based on the discussions in the plenary, the COPAS Committee can decide further actions.
Best regards,
Dan Chirondojan
Our reply to Mr Chirondojan (sent on 2 April 2015)
Dear Mr Chirondojan,
Best Regards,
Hans Nieman
Vice-President
Dan Chirondojan
Our reply to Mr Chirondojan (sent on 2 April 2015)
Dear Mr Chirondojan,
Thank you for your message, which confirms the correctness of our information, and namely that no long-term solution has been identified so far and that a recommendation to ask parents to pay for the service is imminent.
The central issue that we wished to point out in our previous message is that staff working in Brussels have a right to a free transport service from school to after school care, a right that is not defended for JRC staff working at Ispra: we strongly regret that the JRC management is ready to support the concept that Ispra staff rights are different and inferior to those of staff working in other sites.
We also regret that you don't seem to have taken the time to go through all the information provided in our message which would have convinced you that PMO normally pays for this service in Brussels. Since finding a contact in PMO seems to be a "mission impossible" for most of involved stakeholders, we are happy to inform you that it is quite easy to find the person in PMO.1 responsible for "Contrôle des allocations scolaires" on the Commission Directory. In order to obtain definitive confirmation, a colleague of ours asked this contact person: "I am about to move to Brussels and I would be grateful if you could answer the following question (information on the schools websites is not very clear to me): My son will take the bus from home to the school in the morning but I need that in the afternoon he goes to the garderie. Is it possible to have this kind of service, i.e. home-school-garderie? If yes, is the whole cost covered by the Commission through your service or the parents need to contribute to it?" PMO.1 answered: "Your son will be able to take the formula home-school-garderie for the use of the European School bus. They will charge us a complete fare for this use and you won't need to supply."
It must be remembered that COPAS members, both administration nominated and staff representatives, were astonished that the JRC management had passed this issue onto COPAS last year, without JRC management having made any serious attempt to resolve the issue at institutional level. You insist on putting COPAS at the core of the discussion despite all COPAS members agreeing since the beginning that COPAS was not the appropriate body entitled to find a durable solution, and that access to COPAS credits was only an emergency one-off.
COPAS, being a local body, and its ad hoc WG, was clearly only able to evaluate possible options which could be implemented locally in extremis to avoid closure of the service in the absence of a more appropriate institutional solution - we would expect you to be aware that for this reason a formal discussion between the COPAS WG and PMO never took place.
Further to your question to "communicate officially to COPAS members the solution identified with PMO" and your invitation to present it at the next meeting COPAS, we wish to inform you that Trade Unions have no institutional role to send official communications to COPAS members and we invite you to do it in your capacity as COPAS President. Furthermore, unfortunately, we have no authority to deal with PMO directly and on behalf of JRC management.
We hope that the evidence we have passed on to you will now be used by all relevant stakeholders to the benefit of our colleagues using the ES Varese – Ispra Garderie bus service and we reiterate, even more firmly, our request that the JRC organise a meeting with PMO urgently to ensure full respect of the rights of Ispra-based staff.
Best Regards,
Hans Nieman
Vice-President
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