PUBLIC MEETING OF MARCH 19, 2021 - THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION!

Public meeting
No
357

Dear Colleagues,

The Staff Association would first and foremost like to thank the employed and associated members of personnel who participated in large numbers in the March 19 public meeting. We would also like to thank the audio-visual team who made it possible to record this meeting, which you can now view by following this link.

This time again, we presented the state of progress on all the topics that are part of the work programme based on your priorities expressed at the end of 2019 in the surveys launched by both the Association and the Human Resources department.

Two important subjects that were also raised and that are of concern to the Association are the return to effective concertation and the urgent question of the continuation of the collection by the Organization of the Association's membership fees via the January salaries. We will not fail to inform you of the evolution of these two issues and all the others (in order to do so, do not forget to read regularly our articles in ECHO).

Therefore, become a member of the Association and invite your colleagues to become members!

Last Thursday, the Association launched a new membership campaign: each staff delegate contacted at least 20 people by sending them the letter you will find below and asking each of these recipients to send it in turn to 5 of their colleagues whatever their status, grade, seniority, department etc. 

Be a part of this campaign, become a member of the Staff Association and call on your colleagues to become members!

For any questions or information you can always contact the secretariat of the Staff Association.

***

Become a member of the Staff Association!

Call on your colleagues to become members!

 

Dear Colleagues,

I am a member of the CERN Staff Association and I invite you, whatever your status[1], to become a member and to relay my appeal to your colleagues.

The issue of dues collection, which has not been resolved for the past two years, in part motivates this membership campaign today. Indeed, this situation, as we have all read in the ECHO[2], is perilous for all of us, whatever our department, grade, profession, status, or contract length:

Every year, all these contributions enable the Association to fulfil its statutory role within the Organisation: subsidies (the Jardin des Particules, clubs, long-term collections, children's Christmas, etc.); defence of staff (legal assistance, training of staff representatives, actions & information, surveys, etc.); operation (secretariat, insurance, equipment, etc.).

Through your joining the Staff Association, I call on you to gather around it on this issue, which is vital for all the personnel, and to show that the Staff Association is stronger than ever in its representativeness!

Indeed, the Staff Association is the only statutory intermediary for collective relations between staff of all statuses and the Director General (see Article S VII 1.01 of the Staff Regulations). The Association represents and defends all of you. It is therefore very important, for you and for CERN, that the Association effectively represents a maximum number of people in all their diversity of status, nationality, gender, age, opinions, etc.

To further improve on this diversity, you need to make your ideas and positions known, and influence what the Association says and does. This requires membership of the Association and participation in its democratic life (the next elections will take place this autumn). Do you think that the Association does not currently say what is important to you? Or that it says too much? Or it says what you do not think?

Become a member and express your opinion, elect an even more faithful representation of all staff, including yourself!

However, beyond this classic role of representing staff before the Management, the Association also represents you before the Member States and plays the role usually assigned to a parliamentary minority in the States. In fact, together with the Management (via concertation) and the Member States (via TREF), the Association participates in the elaboration and contributes to the evolution of:

  • The CERN Labour Code, including its most structuring elements such as working time and safety at work, via the Staff Regulations and its subsidiary texts;
  • The definition and functioning of CERN's own internal justice system via joint committees (discipline, appeals, etc.) to which the Association appoints certain members; and
  • CERN's unique social protection system and family policy (pensions, health insurance and unemployment insurance).

In short, the Staff Association is your only means of expressing yourself as a citizen of this particular state that is CERN. In addition, the Association defends you even after your retirement and before the national courts[3].

For all these reasons[4], ask for your ballot; ask to become a member of the Association!

Finally, the Association enables and organises the existence of numerous clubs, conferences and a kindergarten on the site and gives you access to commercial partners on favourable terms. The Association is therefore the primary social actor in this particular world in which you and your family are immersed, often far from your roots: CERN.

To become a member: fill in and send the corresponding form.

Thank you in advance!

Note: For this appeal to reach all its recipients, I invite you to send this message to between 5 and 10 of your colleagues, employed and associated member of the personnel. Indeed, access to the e-group of all CERN personnel, even indirectly and not by name, is denied to the Association by the Management.

 

[1] Staff member, fellow, project associate, user, scientific associate; all grades and contract types.

[2] See Did you think that the problem of levying contributions had been solved? Absolutely not!

[3] Together with « Groupement des anciens » ; see article concerning the CSG/CRDS

[4] For more information about the roles of the Association, visit its new website (association.cern.ch) or contact one of the staff delegates (list).