Organisation - October 5, 2011

Employees approach Supervisory Board

Forest and Nature Management programme employees in Velp want to speak to the Supervisory Board of Wageningen UR about the resulting situation at the university of applied sciences. Their appeal was made in a letter to the board on 3 October.

The FNM employees point out that the employees' council of Van Hall Larenstein has lost all confidence in director Ellen Marks for almost three quarters of a year. Moreover, mediation between Marks and suspended programme director Hans van Rooijen has not yet produced any results after two weeks. The employees hope to see a quick return of the programme director, all the more so because the FNM programme would be accredited this academic year and much still needs to be done.
The employees also want to ask the Supervisory Board why Executive Board chairman Aalt Dijkhuizen had refused to speak to Van Rooijen; they say that it is normal in a workplace conflict to have the case being heard again. They feel that Dijkhuizen has not lent a listening ear in his leadership role in this respect.
Currently, management agency Ten Have Change Management is carrying out talks with employees at the applied sciences university. This investigation into the level of support has nothing to do with the return of Van Rooijen, say the letter writers, but makes an issue of employee commitment all of a sudden. Therefore, it would only delay finding a solution between the management and the employees, say the letter writers, who themselves claim to represent all FNM employees.