Brussels, 18/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, Union Syndicale (US) issued prior warning of a strike against the decision by the Committee of the Regions' political office to organise what the union is describing a "phoney internal recruitment competitions". The decision to organise the competition was taken by the political bureau on 9 October by 12 votes to 11, despite opposition from the bureau chair Albert Bore (who voted against the decision). The President of Union Syndicale, Alan Hick, said the competitions had been designed to turn a series of people parachuted in by political parties into regular employees before the new interinstitutional recruitment procedure comes into force next year, but this undermines all independence and integrity of European public service. The CoR staff members' general assembly voted on Thursday 17 October against such recruitment and in favour of issuing a strike warning "by a large majority", explains US. The warning document does not set a date, since this will depend on the outcome of negotiations with CoR management, but the US explained that 61 posts at the CoR (a quarter of the total) are vacant because the CoR has failed to organise regular, public, external recruitment competitions. US is calling on Albert Bore to refuse to apply the decision. The Secretariat General has pointed out that it is simply following the rules and implementing the political bureau's decision. Details of the competition have not yet been finalised, but Temporary Agents are reported to be eligible for it. The issue of recruitment procedures has been a bone of contention ever since the CoR was set up. A strike was organised against "phoney" recruitment back in 1995 (see Europe of 3 November 1995). Various officials at the CoR claim that the CoR finds it difficult to retain officials, who often leave for bigger EU institutions, and for this reason it has a large number of Temporary Agents.