New party waltzes into Works Council

New party waltzes into Works Council

The new party Young Researchers’ Impact (YRI) will enter the Works Council with six seats. The existing parties – FNV, Democratisch Beleid (DB) and Academisch Belang (AB) – will get six, eleven and two seats respectively. This is the provisional result of the or elections held on 3 and 4 October.

Menno Blaauw, outgoing Works Council Chairman and a member of Democratisch Beleid, is happy with YRIs win. “Young researchers will soon be represented clearly at the table,” he responds, also because DB and AB both have a PhD student in their midst too. This will make the composition of the or a better reflection of TU Delft staff. According to YRI president Rebekka van der Grift in an earlier interview with Delta, the group her group represents ‘covers about half of all employees’.

Election turnout this time was lower than three years ago: 25.8 percent compared to 28 percent in 2020. Blaauw can live with it. “I had hoped for 30 percent, but with 25 percent we also compare well with other universities,” he says. He also points to the absolute numbers of voters: 1995 now against 1707 in 2020.

This year, there were elections for only one Personnel Committee (ODC), that of QuTech. At the other nine ODC’s, there were not enough candidates. The turnout at QuTech, according to Blaauw a place ‘with many young, enthusiastic researchers’, was high: 61.7 per cent. (SB)