People in these five groups are able to vote between 2 and 10 June. The new members will start work from 1 September.
The employees’ representative bodies are disappointed at the lack of interest. ‘We think it’s a pity there are so few elections,’ says Nico Lenis, the WUR council secretary. He hopes there will be more ‘spirit and willingness’ to take part in future. In the past few months, there had been insistent calls to employees to stand as candidate, but there are actually fewer candidates than in the previous elections three years ago. Then, nine of the nineteen electoral groups got to vote.
It’s a pity there are so few elections
Nico Lenis
Particularly within the university, few employees have decided to stand for the council. There are no elections in any of the university departments, just as in 2011. Some of the councils will even have empty seats from 1 September. For instance, Plant Sciences has three vacancies and Agro Technology and Food Sciences actually has four empty seats. They can however be filled in the course of the next employees’ council term. Lenis suspects academic staff put their career first, at the expense of a spell in the employees’ council. The compensation for council members is also less than at DLO.
DLO is rather more successful at getting candidates. Nearly all departments are able to fill the available seats and there are even a number of elections. Employees at Alterra, Rikilt, PRI/PPO and Imares Den Helder will be able to vote. Alterra has as many as eleven candidates battling for six seats.
The only one of the general services to hold an election is Facilities and Services. It is not yet clear whether the corporate staff will be able to fill all its seats.