Woman fired after 12 CDDs in one job

A CANCER researcher has spoken out after being being dumped by national medical research institute Inserm - because she had spent too long on short-term CDD contracts.

The woman, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising future job plans, said she had been on 12 different CDD contracts in 11 years with four different employers but all while part of one research team.

She said that with each short-term contrat à durée déterminée (CDD) she was expecting to be upgraded to the permanent contrat à durée indéterminée (CDI), which carries much improved job protection and benefits.

However, Inserm told her that she had now passed the legal limit for continued CDD contracts - after a March 2012 law stating that state, regional and health service employees in what were effectively permanent CDD posts should be switched to a CDI contract.

Inserm said it did not have sufficient money to move her to a CDI, just for a new CDD contract - so she lodged a complaint at the tribunal administratif in Nantes.

She told Le Monde: "They told me it was nothing to do with my competence or the effort I put in, just an administrative error. I had been there too long to sign a new CDD."

Inserm was ordered by the tribunal to look again at moving the researcher to a CDI contract but her lawyer, Me Rémi Bascoulergue, said they had refused as they had no budget.

He has now complained to Minister for Research Geneviève Fioraso calling on her to use her authority to force Inserm to comply with the tribunal decision.

A union official from the Syndicat National des Travailleurs de la Recherche Scientifique said that at the Nantes laboratories of national science research centre CNRS up to 40% of researchers were potentially in the same position.
Photo: © Inserm, U190