Recruiters lure teachers with empty promises
Do you work in education and do you have a Linkedin profile? Then you have a good chance of being approached by a recruiter. Make sure that you do not trade decent working conditions for insecurity.
Picture: Nina Maissouradze
Halfway through the conversation, as a listener, you actually get a little pity for the recruiter. It is a young man, perhaps working on his first job, who also just calls a few people with a first-degree qualification. Can you expect him to answer detailed questions from the teacher?
But that pity disappears when you realize that the recruiter is chatting away his candidate from a permanent job with good working conditions. And that the promised golden future is a temporary job with an uncertain pension and unemployment benefits.
Suspicious
It all started with an email from a secondment agency to a teacher with a first-degree qualification in an exact subject who, in addition to working at school, also AOb works as a consultant. Let the consultant call her Merel is suspicious and makes an appointment with the recruiter for an extensive telephone conversation. What the recruiter let's call him Frank doesn't know is that it Education magazine is listening in.
The promised golden future is a temporary job with an uncertain pension and unemployment benefits
During the interview, Frank first works through his list of standard interview questions. What makes that consultant Merel ever entered education? And why did she specifically choose this exact subject? What gives her energy at work? And how does it continue to develop?
After that he is curious whether Merel has any questions herself. And she has. In the first place: if she likes this new job, why should she actually work through the secondment agency? Can she not immediately become permanent staff at the new school?
“Good question”, recruiter Frank says. "If a vacancy is posted through us, the school can choose to terminate the employment contract after one year." He immediately realizes that this is not really a nice newcomer, so he quickly adds: "But even if you just start working directly at the school itself, that school can end your employment after a year."
And that is the first but unfortunately not the last point that is incorrect in his story. Because this only applies if Merel is temporarily employed by the school, with the prospect of permanent employment. But there is another option: that Merel just immediately becomes permanent. Which makes sense, if she gives up another permanent job for it. In that case Merel goes from permanent to permanent, so that is, well, fixed. And not temporarily.
Pension gap
“And what happens if the school no longer wants me after that year? Then I just get WW, just like in education ”, Merel continues. Here recruiter Frank hesitates. He thinks it is, but he will inquire. However, Merel already knows the answer and that is: absolutely not.
Because the unemployment benefit is a four-stage rocket consisting of a basic benefit, an extended benefit, a consecutive benefit and sometimes an additional consecutive benefit. And those unemployment benefits are regulated in collective labor agreements. If Merel starts working for the secondment agency, she falls under the collective labor agreement of the employment agencies. And then, for example, the right to consecutive and extra consecutive unemployment benefit expires, which can save a lot of money every month in the event of unemployment.
In fact, recruiters are trying to pull teachers away from a decent collective bargaining agreement into a situation full of uncertainty
As the conversation progresses, a pattern will appear in the recruiter's responses. In the first instance, anything is possible: 'I think it is', 'We will certainly work hard for that', 'We will see if we can arrange that for you'. But when asking questions, Frank does not give any hard guarantees. "If you want to know in such detail, I have to continue the question."
Take the question about retirement. Merel has built up a pension with ABP for thirty years and would like to stay with this pension fund. Is that possible? "We are going to achieve that, that that is arranged."
Is that really possible? The consultant does not think so, but we check with the ABP to be sure. The answer is, freely translated: forget it. The consultant can only stay with the APB if the secondment agency affiliates with the ABP, but then the agency must also meet the ABP conditions. And the current pension fund of the secondment agency must grant an exemption to choose a different pension fund. And then that arrangement immediately applies to all employees seconded to that office. 'It is not possible to make an exception for one person,' says ABP.
So Merel would have to switch to the temporary employment sector's pension fund. How bad is that? First of all, ABP is a large, stable fund with more favorable conditions than those of the pension fund of the employment agencies. In addition, the consultant also lost the conditional pension when switching to the other pension fund, an additional pension scheme that was introduced after the abolition of early retirement. And she does not accrue any pension at all for the first six months with the new fund. So she has a pension gap.
Decent
Continued payment of wages in the event of illness: is that just as well organized in the temporary employment sector as in education? Recruiter Frank pauses for a moment. “Yes… From my head… but I will immediately walk to my colleague.” It is to be hoped that this colleague will be able to say that, according to the education collective labor agreement, a teacher will continue to be paid 100 percent of the salary for the first year of his possible illness. In a secondment agreement this is usually only about 90 percent. In addition, two waiting days may also apply.
Furthermore, the consultant has been employed in education for almost 25 years. She almost receives an anniversary bonus, which is quickly half a month's salary. Will Merel also receive this if she works in education through a secondment agency? Frank is going to inquire, but here too Merel already knows the answer: no.
After XNUMX minutes Merel kindly ends the conversation. A number of issues have remained, but the pattern is abundantly clear. Number of vacation days in the secondment industry? Frank will undoubtedly have to inquire about this, but Merel already knows: less than in education. And an end-of-year bonus? Common in education, not in secondment.
Recruiters pretend that your employment conditions will not change, but that is not true
Once the connection has been lost, the big question arises: is this phone call the exception or the rule? The latter, Merel fears. “I speak regularly AObmembers who are approached by recruiters. They earn from seconding teachers and act out of ignorance or worse as if nothing changes in your employment conditions. And if you don't know any better as a teacher, you think: It will be good. ”
But it is not. “In fact, recruiters try to pull teachers away from a decent collective labor agreement into a situation full of uncertainty. And there is only one party that really benefits from this: the secondment agency itself. ”
