Editorial

One year ends…


Throughout 2010, your Staff Association representatives met with the Management and Member State delegates to discuss the two subjects of the 2010 five-yearly review, health insurance and salaries, and the Pension Fund’s return to full funding. Taking into account the economic crisis in the large majority of our Member States, it has been far from easy to convince the Member State delegations to take measures to improve the health of our social security systems by injecting 425 million Swiss francs into the personnel budget over the next five years.

This successful consolidation of the CERN employment conditions has been made possible thanks to the excellent work of all CERN staff who, in collaboration with several hundred researchers, engineers, and technicians from throughout the world, have worked hard to guarantee the success of the LHC in 2010. And to quote two of our directors: “The LHC experiments have measured and published in the space of around eight months just about all the physics of the last half-century. […] They have also published new physics”. This is wonderful to hear and augurs well for a 2011 filled with potential discovery and new records in luminosity.


And another year begins


However, 2011 will also have its challenges in the area of employment conditions. The conditions for the CERN Pension Fund which will apply to staff members recruited from 1st January 2012 will need to be defined, as well as the measures for the transition from the current to the new scheme for pensioners. The system of benefits of the health insurance scheme will need to be defined and implemented, taking into account the decisions taken by CERN Council in the framework of the 2010 five-yearly review, and the near-complete work on the procedure for handling complaints of harassment finalized and its implemented. Other subjects to be discussed are careers (MARS follow-up after four exercises, use of the technical and behavioural competency models, improvements in the classification of posts by following the Bologna system, validation of acquired experience…), contract policy (assessment of the current situation after several CCRB exercises, with a possible change to the current system so that a post can be defined as long or short term as soon as it is opened), manpower plan (the need for resources to ensure the smooth running of the Organization), internal mobility (better planning, more possibilities), flexible working time (arrangement on a weekly basis, work from home, pre-retirement programmes, etc.)


The above is a non-exhaustive list based on the priorities expressed in the 2008 and 2009 staff surveys. Please do not hesitate to contact your Staff Council delegates to enrich the discussions by giving them your opinion on these subjects or to add point not mentioned above. Your contribution will be extremely useful in our discussions with our negotiating partners.

by Staff Association