After EU court ruling, Isotita calls for civil service changes

A recent judgment of the EU’s Court of Justice (CJEU) could pave the way for thousands of civil servants on fixed-term employment to become permanent workers, Isotita union said on Tuesday.

In a letter, which was also shared with the finance ministry, the union calls on the government to take immediate action and make permanent the positions of employees in the public sector who are on temporary or fixed-term contracts, in light of CJEU’s February 22 judgment.

The judgment considers that temporary employees fall under the concept of ‘fixed-term employee’ and on fixed-term contracts.

It ruled that the indefinite extension of an employment contract without the publication of a vacancy notice for the post constitutes an “abuse of successive fixed-term employment contracts or relationships,” which member states are obligated to prevent through the introduction of measures.

Therefore, the CJEU opposes national regulations that do not contain effective measures to prevent and penalise such abuses, stating in particular that simple compensation in case of unfair dismissal is not a sufficient measure, and neither is awarding posts through competitions, which put permanent workers at an unfair advantage.

“In the absence of adequate measures in national law to prevent and, where necessary, penalise… abuse arising from the use of successive fixed-term contracts, including non-permanent contracts of indefinite duration which have been extended successively, the conversion of those temporary contacts into permanent contracts is capable of constituting such a measure,” it said.

Referring to the above, Isotita recalled the president’s pre-election commitments to equalise employment conditions for fixed-term and indefinite-term employees with those of permanent employees, and seek a definitive solution to the status of indefinite-term employees.

Concluding, the union called on the government “to immediately comply with the obligations of the Republic of Cyprus deriving from EU law and to proceed with the necessary permanent employment of all affected workers”.