How the fight against employment agencies is slowly unfolding
Commercial employment agencies that place flex workers at schools are a thorn in the side for primary and secondary education. Especially in a financial sense. Schools are devising ways to get around the desks.
The fact that he has no influence on it as a school administrator. That bothers Frans van Pinxteren, chairman of the board of the Petrus Canisius College in Alkmaar most when you ask him about the deployment of flex workers in education. “It all goes through commercial agencies, outside of us. And we as schools have nothing to say about the terms of employment or the wages for which these substitute teachers come to work. ” And that while Van Pinxteren and his fellow board members are responsible for the amount of the personnel costs. "It didn't feel right."
That is why Van Pinxteren decided to put it on the table during a meeting of the Topgroep, a partnership of secondary education administrators in North Holland North, from Texel to Beverwijk and from Enkhuizen to Schagen. Other drivers also saw the problem. 'Because of those commercial parties, we regularly lose 50 percent more than we get reimbursed for teacher salaries', they noted in the report. Noordhollands Dagblad.
The schools are already calling each other out if there is a teacher who is temporarily unable to work
The Top Group schools tackled the problem. The common goal: to put an end to extortionate prices for hired teachers. “We want to start up a kind of replacement pool together,” explains Van Pinxteren. This is still in the start-up phase, but the schools are already calling each other out if there is a teacher who is temporarily unable to work. "When there is a sick report, our first thought now is: How can we solve this internally?"
For example, they look at their own former teachers who indicated upon departure that they are still open to substitute jobs, and the schools also ask each other. “It may be that there is a physics teacher at a school who works part-time, and who wants to work two more days. If there is a gap at another school, you can fill it up in no time. ” It also works the other way around: is a school struggling with exodus? Then, within the partnership, it is examined whether there is also a school with a teacher shortage.
In addition, the schools work with the agreement that when recruiting substitute teachers, no higher wages will be offered than those laid down in the collective labor agreement. No: not even for the deficit subjects (think: mathematics, physics, chemistry). The Noordhollands Dagblad spoke of a 'gentlemen's agreement' and a 'ceiling rate'. “That sounds very strict,” says Van Pinxteren. "It's not that we're entering into a battle with the commercial agencies: we're also just talking to them to see how we can influence the rates and conditions that the agencies use."
Precursor
“As a union, we support these kinds of non-commercial initiatives,” says Anissa Khattabi, AObpolicy advisor social security. In fact, Khattabi would like to see it happen more, because those extortionate prices and those employment agencies: that's a problem.
"If you look at how that came about, we have to go back a few years, when there was still a teacher surplus." Khattabi recalls that many schools made arrangements with teachers who retired earlier to settle the surplus. "At the time, we as the education union explicitly advised: Keep these teachers in the service of supra-governmental service, because there will be a shortage." It is not that she now wants to point her finger, like 'you see now', but it clearly shows how commercial employment agencies could suddenly advance in no time.
“School boards were surprised by the shortage and went back to a short-term solution. "Someone is sick today, so I need someone for today." The employment agencies cleverly jumped into that gap, resulting in higher costs. ”
Schools did not start on time with administrative cooperation
Khattabi states that schools did not start administrative cooperation in time. "Even the replacement pools are running out." She now sees that initiatives are being launched 'very slowly' to turn the tide. The initiative of the Topgroep is a precursor, if you ask Khattabi. Primary schools in particular can do more, she says. “Between 2012 and 2015, a lot of people entered the unemployment benefit system, schools are legally obliged to recruit their own unemployed people for vacancy space. We note, however, that this happens very little. Schools should make much more use of this possibility. ”
Question marks
There are also other ways people try to keep the commercial employment agencies out. For example, there is a non-commercial employment agency, founded by Jan-Willem Duim, self-employed in education himself. He says he gets 'not a cent for it', except for a registration fee of fifty euros. Self-employed people can register on his site flex-onderwijs.nl. Schools use it free of charge, for both primary and secondary education. Thumb does not mediate: school and teacher themselves contact each other, or not. “And the flex workers cost nothing more than a converted teacher salary. They don't have to pay me anything extra. ”
Khattabi does place 'legal question marks' on this. “These self-employed workers are not insured against sickness, incapacity for work and unemployment. Nor do they accrue pension. " Moreover, for her it is questionable whether it is possible at all to work as a self-employed person in education: “There is a relationship of authority between the employee and the employer. We are also receiving signals that the deployment of freelancers leads to a higher workload for current colleagues, because they do not always take up the additional tasks besides teaching. ”
The Broad Selection has been in place for four years, in which 110 public schools for primary and special education in Amsterdam work together
There are also other collaborations that allow schools to avoid commercial employment agencies. Think of the Personnel Cluster East Netherlands (PON). 120 primary school boards are united in this. The boards that are affiliated represent approximately 2100 FTEs. PON has a large flex pool that allows primary schools to quickly fill temporary vacancies.
There are also such large replacement pools in other parts of the country. For example, the Broad Selection has been in place for four years, in which 110 public schools for primary and special education in Amsterdam work together.
School director Eric Molenveld is ultimately responsible for this. “We work with flexibly deployable people who can fill in for a shorter or longer period of time,” he says. “We did that before the employment agencies emerged in our sector. When we noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to fill spontaneous gaps, our boards said to each other: As a comprehensive school, we have to arrange it ourselves. ”
It's not a solution, but in your desperation and fear of class cancellation, you sometimes do strange things.
And that has been going well for four years, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. "We recruit people from all over the country, sometimes people who are at the start of their career and still want to get a taste of different schools, sometimes people who have just finished their career and do not need a permanent job." Molenveld makes no bones about it: teachers who are deployed through the Broad Selection are cheaper. “No VAT has to be paid about us, and we don't work with a margin. Temporary employment agencies and secondment workers do. I know of those that are 150 percent more expensive than we are. We adhere to the collective labor agreement. ”
He understands that school principals sometimes use those 'expensive' desks. “It's not a solution, but in your despair and out of fear of dropping out of class, you sometimes do strange things. But if we all continue to do this, education will become unaffordable. ”
Fill holes
Molenveld therefore advises every school to seek out the same kind of partnership. “You really don't have to tackle it big. We're just a small desk, five people, but we can fill the gaps that occasionally appear at more than a hundred schools. And with that we take away a lot of stress from the directors who receive all those sickness reports in the morning, and we ensure that the staff costs at those schools are kept under control. ”
Collaborate. According to Van Pinxteren of the Alkmaar Petrus Canisius College, that is also the best solution. “First report to each other if you have a gap before hiring an employment agency. As a school, it is not easy for you to put up with the imbalances in the market, visit each other and together ensure that there is a teacher in front of the class at all times, in exchange for a reasonable wage. ”
What's the problem?
Commercial employment agencies have plunged into the gap of teacher shortages and attract teachers with generous travel allowances or the promise of training. Teachers are also sometimes offered a car. Schools that are at a loss because of the shortage often find themselves forced to work with these agencies, despite the costs.
SP and GroenLinks recently asked questions in the House of Representatives about extortionate prices. "What seems to be happening now is that there are employment agencies that are taking advantage of the scarcity in the labor market for primary education to increase the rates they charge," responded Education Minister Arie Slob. He thinks this is 'not a good development' and indicated that he understood the concerns of the school boards.
