Bonum Certa Men Certa

Team Campinos Will Try to Make It Difficult to Go on Strike (But Won't Manage to Prevent It)

Facing Insistent, Demoralised EPO Staff

Strike action



Summary: The European Patent Office has a long and growing tradition of failing to respect staff's rights, including the right to go on strike (over violations of other rights of staff)

OVER the past few days we've written twice about EPO strike ballot. There's going to be a ballot for a strike (such initiatives used to get 90% of people in favour, if not more, probably due to some in management voting against). Rules have been made stricter to make it harder to initiate strikes (thresholds, delays, intimidation, miscommunication, blackout, misinformation, and various other voter suppression tactics). Over the years we wrote dozens of articles about past strikes as well as actions to restrict these. Among them:





EPO President António Campinos has not even been on the job for a year. He has been telling people fairy tales about his father and pretended to EPO staff that he sought to ameliorate the crisis (while further diminishing patent quality in Europe). Judging by the latest comments on this blog post from "Kluwer Patent blogger", people remain very unhappy. The blog post mostly pastes text from SUEPO, adding some context and other developments towards the end:

‘Almost one year after the arrival as Mr. Campinos as President of the EPO, we note with regret that the social situation hasn’t improved and that none of the root causes of the many issues that trouble our organisation have been addressed. The Battistelli administration and its anti-staff policies are still in place. The situation in the office is more toxic than ever, as also shown by the recent disastrous staff survey results and the worsening of staff health. There are many reasons for discontent’, the SUEPO wrote to president Campinos last week.

[...]

The EPO staff survey mentioned earlier (and reported about on this blog) showed four in ten staff members say they face substantial obstacles to doing their job well. They have a very negative view of management effectiveness, with low confidence in senior management decisions. Only 39 percent feel they are treated with respect.

In the meantime, the president of the Federation of International Civil Servants’ Associations (FICSA), which represents the interests of more than 20.000 staff in the international civil service, wrote to Campinos yesterday as well, expressing ‘grave concern about the apparent lack of meaningful progress in the social dialogue at the EPO as reported to FICSA.’

Under EPO regulations, organising a strike can take more than a month. The SUEPO wants the strike to take place around the next meeting of the Administrative Council on 26 and 27 June 2019. The strike action is subject to a staff ballot, which has to be organised by the administration before 16 June.


"The EPO is really sick" is the name assigned to the first (among 6) comment. "Is that how Mr Campinos concretely acts when it comes to handle “taxpayers’ money” with “due diligence, due process and careful legal assessment”?"

Rhetorical question. Here's the full comment:

Mr. Campinos sets a new record with his arrogant style, dilettante fashion and worrying lack of genuine work and concrete action. Less than a year after he took office, he who was presented as the king of social dialogue, you bet he is indeed!

All this is also the sad result of the work of his preferred advisers’, the duo Bergot-Requena.

Surely the famous “french touch” found on http://www.suepo.org : https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/vie-de-bureau/burn-out-alerte-rouge-sur-le-management-a-la-francaise_655248

All this is utterly depressing. This unsolved social crisis obviously impacts on the functioning of the EPO to the detriment of the users and the public. The quality of the work delivered is plummeting since management by fear and pressure coupled to wrong incentives creates a deleterious work environment.

Also illustrative of the unhealthy practices at the EPO under the current administration :

during the recent Budget and Finance Committee in Munich Mr Campinos is said to have tried and fortunately blatantly failed, to obtain no less than 600 (!) Mio EUR ( some delegations actually reported of 1 billion EUR, a “mere” 400 Mio difference but hey : so what? ) for “imperative” building works office-wide which no one, except Campinos and the duo Requena-Bergot probably, consider imperative.

Fortunately for once the delegations were awake: indeed 16 voted to modify the agenda point from “for vote” to “for information”, further 19 abstained. 35 out of 39 delegations thus refused to follow Campinos blindly. This is no surprise since Campinos took them for nothing but fools (they were provided with a very thin rationale to support the need for such an enormous amount of applicants’ money, they had only a few weeks to make up their minds and no time to ask questions).

To paraphrase his own words, from his recent distasteful communiqué on EPO’s intranet :

– Would Mr Campinos not be a little “excessive” on this one ? – Is that how Mr Campinos concretely acts when it comes to handle “taxpayers’ money” with “due diligence, due process and careful legal assessment” ?

As Americans put it : follow the money.

CUI BONO?



Some then said:

One reads this post and cannot believe that this is what the EPO has become.

In less than a decade, a bunch of managers have succeeded in annihilating one of the few (the only?) European organizations governed by engineers and scientists who actually knew what they were doing.


Then there's a link to Techrights and to USF:

the letter of FICSA to Mr Campinos mentioned in the Kluwer article can be found here : http://techrights.org/2019/05/24/ficsa-last-chance/

[...]

And before FICSA, Union Syndicale Federale (USF) wrote to Mr Campinos https://www.unionsyndicale.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/USF_OEB_2019-04-29-12-48-18.pdf


The EPO now pays Mercer (yes, there's Trump connection) to lie about the EPO and then financially screw staff this way, in essense by manufacturing gloomy predictions. As the next commenter put it:

The manner in which the EPO’s future financial status has been reported worrys [sic] me greatly.

It is self-evidently not the case that the EPO is in any danger of going in to the red. If it were, then would it really have decided to massively increase the risk level with regard to the investments that it makes with a substantial portion of its enormous cash reserves? After all, if you cannot afford to lose, then you do not take unnecessary risks!

So, given that the projected deficit is nothing more than a fantasy, one has to ask why on earth would the EPO’s management want to try to sell that fantasy? Whilst I do not know the real reason for this, it is clear that it cannot be anything good … hence my concern about what on earth the EPO’s management could be planning.


Since 2016 we've been writing about Campinos, saying he would likely be the 'next Battistelli'. His mask is slipping. Staff should go on strike; he would soon get the message. So would the Council. Staff demands concrete changes, not mask swaps.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Will Brett Wilson LLP Handle Its Own Winding Up Petition or be Struck Off for Overt Abuse of Process?
Today we sue not only the first Microsofter
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
 
Brett Wilson LLP Has Track Record in Scam Coin Cases (e.g. Craig Wright and More), Now It Works for 'Crypto' Scam Purveyors
But wait, it gets worse
Exclusive: corruption in Tribunals, Greffiers, from protection rackets to cat whisperers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Under the Guise of "MIT Technology Review Insights" the Site MIT Technology Review Posts Corporate Spam as 'Articles'
Some of the articles aren't even articles but 'hit pieces' against Free software and some are paid advertisements
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day