Bernard Koekoek of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV), who is responsible for higher education in South Limburg and has witnessed multiple mergers between public institutions, wouldn’t be surprised. The devil is in the details, he explains: “‘No changes for now’ is far less concrete than ‘no changes for the next X years’. I do believe that they don’t intend to make cuts in the new organisation immediately, but it would be naïve to think it will never happen. Who knows what the situation will look like in three or five years, especially if different people are in charge? My experience with previous mergers shows that, at some point, management will start looking at whether things could be run more efficiently” – and decide to reorganise after all. “It’s better to acknowledge that up front”, Koekoek says. “And to set down in writing how it would be handled. After all, IT and finance staff didn’t sign up for a merger with the hospital, but they will still have to deal with the consequences.” But Koekoek doesn’t think that compulsory redundancies would be likely in Maastricht’s situation. “Compulsory redundancies are a last resort. If they were really necessary, they would happen immediately.”
What about the shared services centre? Could it really help solve problems in departments struggling to recruit staff, like legal services, as management claims? “That’s how they’re selling it, yes. I don’t think they genuinely believe it will solve those problems. If two departments are each lacking different expertise, combining them is a gain. But if the issue is that you can’t find the right people, merging departments won’t change that. This is just a drop in the ocean, not a solution to the problem.”
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