Cleaners Baudartius employed by new merger school
The merger between the Baudartius College and Achterhoek VO is almost complete now that the last loose end has been resolved since the end of last week: Achterhoek VO is keeping the two cleaners of Baudartius employed.
Image: Pixabay
AObdistrict manager Philippe Abbing is satisfied with this: “The tendency is for school boards to outsource cleaning externally and cleaners to come under a much worse collective labor agreement. That is not happening now. "
Since 1 August 2018, the Baudartius College, a one-person school in Zutphen, has been administratively part of Achterhoek VO, a school group with thirteen secondary schools. The merger was necessary because of the declining student numbers at Baudartius and the school was under stricter financial supervision by the Education Inspectorate. "Something had to be done," says AObdistrict driver Abbing. "Otherwise the school would go bankrupt."
Social plan
The merger required significant cuts in the workforce, both educational support staff and teachers. "A social plan has been drawn up for this," says Abbing. More than thirty people had to find another job. “We succeeded without forced redundancies”, says board chairman Henk van der Esch of Achterhoek VO. People retired or were able to work at one of the Achterhoek VO schools.
The tendency is that school boards outsource cleaning and cleaners come under a much worse collective labor agreement
The only question was what would happen to the two cleaners at Baudartius College. Director Van der Esch: “Initially we wanted them to transfer to the cleaning company, so we wanted to outsource it externally. Only with certain guarantees, for example that they could continue to work in Zutphen. The cleaning company appeared to be unable to give any guarantees about this. So asking the question was actually already answering it. We decided to let the cleaners fall under the collective labor agreement for secondary education and to employ them. ”
More favorable
Abbing says that this collective agreement for secondary education is much more favorable. "Cleaners build up a better pension there and the wages are higher." The AObdistrict administrator sees more often that schools want to outsource cleaning externally. “School boards want to get rid of the employer's obligation. We are really against that. It is rarely cheaper and the quality is deteriorating. Schools then appoint someone to monitor the quality of the cleaning. ”
Now that it is clear that the cleaners fall under the new school foundation, the social plan can be definitively terminated. Van der Esch: “We are still working on the school merger. From August 1, 2019, the transition classes of the Baudartius will merge with the Stedelijk. Together we are now creating a new profile for this. It is sometimes a bit of a switch, because we are moving from years of competition to cooperation. Maintaining equality is important, so we take the time for that.”
