"A tsunami of legal cases on the horizon" was circulated earlier today
"The Benoît Battistelli era/reign of terror isn’t over; his friend resumes all the attacks on staff, even at an unprecedented pace and scale."As it turns out, one can expect a lot more action, even if Campinos is tentatively shown the door (effective next year). In recent months the union and staff representatives repeatedly pointed out attacks on the welfare of staff and benefit that staff rightly came to expect (part of the package associated with relocating a family to another country/city).
Today, in the words of the staff representation, the Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) -- not to be mistaken for the union:
Staff Committee The Hague Comité du personnel de La Haye Personalausschuss Den Haag
28 June 2022
A tsunami of legal cases on the horizon
Education and childcare allowance reform
Dear Colleagues,
The Education and Childcare reform is becoming again the daily poisonous pill for affected staff in the Hague. A reform designed to be transparent, fair, reduce administrative burden, and give legal certainty is emerging to be the most ignominious reform of all time, making a mockery of the initial objectives of the reform.
It was not enough that managers mostly located in Munich ideated a reform which significantly reduces the Education and Childcare compensation for Staff in the Hague, now the Administration is on a mission to scrape the barrel and is looking for further cuts.
Day by day, parents are confronted with a new piece of information, highlighting a new cut to the education benefits. The list of cuts is becoming worthy to mention, and should bring to shame anybody who masterminded it.
The administration, in spite of committing to refund the direct costs for education, is now considering some direct and mandatory costs for schooling of students not to be refundable. These costs are often part of the tuition fees and in any case always a core part of the curriculum and/or mandatory for attendance of the school.
The list of excluded items now contains: mandatory trips, canteen supervision, exam fees, school fees (some fees of dubious nature newly rebranded by the British School), school activities, student expenses, technology fee, campus fee, regional taxes, etc. The list seems to be endless and will surely keep growing at the convenience of the Office.
However, the good news is that, considering the way the regulations are written (Art. 71 ServRegs, Circ. 411 and the other official documents), evident legal reasons for challenging the reform are present.
We therefore advise each staff member to request the refund of all disputed direct costs (any of those in the list above) to hrservices@epo.org requesting a ticket to be opened. If your request is rejected, we would like to remind you of the possibility to launch a Request for Review within the 3 month time period from the date of rejection.
Additionally, the new Education Allowance Portal is showing already major deficiencies which are troublesome for many staff members. Staff Representation TH is monitoring this issue very closely. For the time being, we would like to remind you of the advice of SUEPO to use a disclaimer (also in ANNEX below) to keep your right to challenge the discretionary request by the administration.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.
With kind regards,
Your Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH)
[ANNEX omitted]