Municipal amalgamations: more attention for public workers

“The biggest losers in a fusion of municipalities are the effected public employees,” said Urs Stauffer, Vice-President of CESI at a seminar on local administration on 23rd September in Bonn. It is therefore important for the trade unions to become critically involved in future amalgamation processes. The financial standing of many European municipalities is becoming increasingly unstable due to tax cuts, reduced adjustment payments and increased applications for social benefits resulting from the world economic crisis. ”Many local authorities are no longer able to carry out their legal duties,” said Stauffer. Accordingly, a community’s financial room for manoeuvre is highly constricted.

Tough national budgets, seeking to balance the books, are often the trigger for many municipal mergers. Losses need to be adjusted for within specific timeframes. “If a council is unable to make loss adjustments using available means such as tax increases or austerity measures, its only other option may be to look for a partner,“ explained Stauffer. One example is Switzerland where municipal mergers are still being planned, despite numerous amalgamations over the past few years.

“The experience of Switzerland clearly shows that the interests of local civil servants are not properly safeguarded during mergers of municipalities,” criticised Stauffer. There are few winners but many losers. In fact, what Switzerland does teach us is that parts of future amalgamation processes need particular attention. This means that trade unions as well as affected local civil servants must be informed about the goals and principles of planned amalgamations. In addition, public employers must also be bound by employment guarantees because municipal amalgamations lead to structural changes without a decrease in the amount of work. Social plans must also be drawn up for particularly hard cases.