The European Central Bank plans to change the rules governing its staff committee after several clashes between management and staff representatives.
The ECB says the first overhaul in a decade aims to boost stability and diversity on the body while ensuring staff reps remain in touch with the bank’s work, but current representatives view the move as an attack aimed at undermining them.
The biggest point of contention relates to plans to introduce strict rules on how long each staff rep can dedicate to their committee role and to ban any additional work time from being used to undertake trade union duties.
An ECB spokesperson said the limitations are designed to “enable staff representatives to stay closely connected to the ongoing work and public mandate of the ECB,” while ensuring they can keep their careers on track. But staff reps alleged the move is designed to undermine their effectiveness.
“Somebody who works 100 percent is more effective than two people working 50 percent juggling two jobs at the same time,” said ECB staff committee spokesperson Carlos Bowles. Currently, the staff committee is allocated a certain number of hours for its work, which members can divvy up among themselves as they see fit.
Several committee members are also active in the IPSO trade union and are currently allowed to combine time allowances for the two roles.
“This is clearly a retaliation from President Christine Lagarde in response to the survey on her performance as ECB president that we conducted last year,” Bowles claimed. The ECB did not provide a response to this allegation.
The staff survey, first reported by POLITICO, showed that more than 50 percent of participants ranked Lagarde’s performance as “very poor” or “poor.”
“Instead of trying to improve staff relations, they are shooting the messenger,” Bowles said. The ECB also plans to place a two-term limit on the committee spokesperson (excluding Bowles from serving again), and to increase the number of staff reps from nine to 10. And the bank wants to extend the time staff reps serve on the committee to three years, up from two.
The ECB spokesperson said the bank “will launch a consultation process on the changes with staff representatives.” But staff reps will have no formal voting rights and expressed doubts that their concerns will be heard, complaining that the bank had reached out to journalists before the committee had received all the relevant documents.
The staff committee has been increasingly vocal about troubles at the central bank, focusing on issues such as mental health and favoritism. The committee called on staff to protest against favoritism on March 11 at a gathering at lunchtime in the ECB headquarters.
Comments by ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel in a private conversation ahead of a panel event in February 2024 highlight the tension between staff reps and the bank’s leadership. Caught on a hot mic, Schnabel described the staff committee’s Lagarde survey as biased and said members of the IPSO trade union are “super aggressive people in an institution that treats everybody very well.”
Carlo Boffa contributed to reporting.
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