• Recruitment: Recruitment in Luxembourg has become a perennial problem as you know, and the rising costs of living are making it even less alluring. However, HR has been working on the creation of an inter-institutional database to help the institutions fill vacancies. This would also help contractual and temporary agents plan their next moves and avoid protracted periods of limbo. The project is delayed because of other institutions. We look forward to an update of the CALUX (heads of administration of the institutions) meeting to learn the latest. We will do our best to ensure that this system will offer a meaningful career-building solution for colleagues.

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• Salaries: Luxembourg is often characterised by superlatives. It’s typically the country where people earn most. But this figure is light years away from the situation of more and more contractual agents or AST/SC1 colleagues who are earning LESS than Luxembourg’s minimum wage, a situation that gets worse with indexations. What happened to the great plans about increasing Luxembourg’s attractiveness? We cannot tolerate any longer that colleagues, sometimes doing the same work, earn less than the lowest paid in Luxembourg.

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• PMO: Conscious of life among our DGs in Luxembourg, TAO still regrets the situation at PMO, with colleagues being overworked, sometimes underpaid, falling ill and leaving the sick DG. We welcome the creation of a listening chamber but why haven’t the staff unions been invited? We get the calls from colleagues in tears on the phone.

• Buildings: It can be difficult to have your own home. And it’s the same for DGs. OP had been anticipating its move into the ecologically-friendly new Mercier building next door for some years. Seat plans had been drawn up. A housewarming party was being imagined. Alas, with resources becoming ever tighter, (thank you Mr Putin), OP will and CNECT will do a tight homeshare.

• Hot desking as a solution?: With a maximum capacity of just over 740, seating all 580+ colleagues from OP and the 180+ colleagues won’t be possible if they come all come at once. OP’s director-general organised, with lightning speed, a town hall in which she was honest and frank about the sudden change. TAO appreciates this but deplores however OIL’s and HR’s lack of consultation on this thorny issue. We will defend teleworking, way over hotdesking, as the most widely accepted solution for managing the limited space and car parking.

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TAO continues watching these subjects closely including others such as :

• health reimbursement costs

• the new EPSOlution for recruitment

• reclassification and more.