To all members of personnel...

Dear colleagues,

You have had the opportunity to be informed of this if you have followed our last public meetings, for the first time in CERN's history, and after more than two years of discussions with the Management, the annual membership fees to the Staff Association (SA) have not been deducted from the January salaries of SA members.

Surprisingly, Management continues, wrongly and despite our repeated denials, to consider that the SA is an association governed by Swiss law, and external to CERN. On this basis, Management asks us to fulfil what we consider inappropriate data protection requirements applicable to the process of deduction of the Staff Association's membership fees by the Organisation's salaries office.

However, the SA is a statutory body of CERN, whose roles and prerogatives are defined in the CERN Staff Rules and Regulations; the same is true for all other staff associations and unions in other intergovernmental organisations.

This decision by the Management is really only intended to weaken the SA and prevent it from fulfilling its role it has according to the CERN Staff Rules and Regulations, which is, promoting and defending your rights. To our knowledge, this is a unique “manoeuvre” in the world of the international civil service; it is therefore a frontal attack on the rights of all personnel to be represented by the statutory body provided for this purpose, whether or not they are members of the Association.

We consider that this is, even if Management will claim the contrary, yet another attempt to hinder the proper functioning of the Staff Association in its mission of staff representation, in the same way as the lack of real effective concertation in good faith that we have to face in recent years.

This new attack must be read in the light of the others that have been carried out so far against all categories of personnel, including staff, fellows and associated members of personnel. You could read about them in our last Flash Info of last December, namely:

  • The endangerment of the international character of the technical professions;
  • The deterioration of the working conditions of our Users colleagues;
  • The constant decline in the attractiveness of the Organisation (dissuasive contract policy, insufficient career development, low promotion, etc.);
  • The lack of consolidation of the social protection system;
  • The announced devaluation of the fellows' contract.

So, keep yourself informed by reading the ECHO, but also by attending our next public meeting on Monday 31 January.

Come, bring your colleagues, connect!

by Staff Association