Bonum Certa Men Certa

Inside the EPO During Corona: 'Sick' António Campinos Uses a Global Sickness to Illegally Rob EPO Staff, Already Besieged by the Pandemic

How One Family’s Deep Pockets Helped Reshape Donald Trump’s CampaignSummary: The merciless António Campinos keeps lying to staff (citing a notorious 'study' from Donald Trump’s friend) and working behind staff's backs to crush their financial stability; the following letter was sent by the Central Staff Committee back in March (at the same time the UK had just entered nationwide lock-down)

THE lock-down 'wave' across Europe is putting in jeopardy not only the physical health of millions but also the mental health of an order of magnitude more. Those who still managed to keep their job (usually by working from home) aren't exactly calm; the risk of losing one's job is real, it is growing over time, and it's getting harder and harder to seek alternative employment to catch up/keep up with one's mortgage payments, student debt or whatnot.



"...the risk of losing one's job is real, it is growing over time, and it's getting harder and harder to seek alternative employment to catch up/keep up with one's mortgage payments, student debt or whatnot."The EPO is a rich organisation, so there's no real excuse for Benoît Battistelli's friend to continue crushing the staff in the financial sense (let/set aside other aspects of this crushing).

Here's what staff representatives wrote to Campinos, citing relevant documents for factual backing/support:

Reference: sc20051cl - 0.3.1/4.2.2 Date: 24.03.2020

Mr António Campinos President of the EPO

ISAR – Room 1081

OPEN LETTER

Discussions on the salary adjustment procedure

Dear Mr President,

A draft new salary adjustment procedure was sent to the WG GCC SSPR on 20 March 2020, still following the approach spelling conflict with staff for the entire duration of its application. In this letter, the Central Staff Committee would like to highlight the biggest flaw (Article 9) and proposes a way forward.

Your proposal is not viable (many technical and legal problems, and no acceptance by staff). Article 9 (affordability clause) is an infamous mechanism continuously cutting the purchasing power of active staff and pensioners. It is certainly not what your staff from whom you expect so many efforts, also at times of a pandemic, deserves. It would be perceived as adding insult to injury. The proposal is as such not acceptable as it

- does not fulfil the minimum criteria for a Salary Adjustment Procedure in an International Organisation; - violates1 Article 33 of the European Patent Convention; - wilfully distorts all statistics provided by Eurostat and ISRP after approval of the national statisticians2 and - will further erode competitiveness of EPO salaries and more generally its attractiveness.

______ 1 See footnote on page 13 of the presentation by Mercer dated 16 March 2020: “Pending assessment by Legal regarding compatibility with EPC and Service Regulations”. The Office also seems to have realised that their own proposed methodology is not only very complex, but involves legal risks. We are wondering whether the legal assessment has been carried out in DG 4 or DG 5 and whether it can be communicated to us. 2 We advise again that you have your proposal urgently checked by expert statisticians at Eurostat or ISRP.




In other words, your proposal is not fit for the purpose of adapting the salaries in the second biggest and very successful European Organisation. We urge you to reconsider this article in particular and to enter into the good faith discussion with the staff representation, which is not the case so far.

At this point in time we see two options that we could support to get out of this impasse. You could consider postponing

1. the discussion by one year. In view of Article 10 of the Salary Adjustment Procedure, this would be no problem. It would reassure staff that you are not trying to unfairly take advantage of the current pandemic. It would also be in line with what national governments do under such circumstances, see for instance the decision of the French President to suspend the implementation of a pension reform.

2. the submission of a CA document for decision on the matter to the October meeting of the Administrative Council (AC). Pending this, we inform you that in case of agreement on a salary adjustment procedure, we are ready to give also a positive opinion in the GCC to one additional Article that you are proposing provided it is modified as laid out in the Annex. In other words we would agree to postponing implementation of the adjustments from 1 July to 1 January on a yearly basis (as was done in the Co-ordinated Organisations 27 years ago) provided a compensation for this postponement is implemented in the form of an adjustment of the salary and pension scales (as was also done in the Co-ordinated Organisations3).

This would address any perceived difficulty for management to adopt a new salary adjustment procedure in October with retroactive effect. It would allow extending the discussions to be ready for a decision at the October meeting of the Administrative Council and thus maintain your original time-frame, without staff feeling abused by keeping the June Council for decision.

Both options above would allow you to continue the discussion with us in a more serene atmosphere and on the basis of the basic principles which we have expressed, i.e. a temporary limitation of the adjustment for a determined period and the inclusion of a sharpened exception clause that would trigger in the event of a crisis. We are ready to discuss both the intensity and the duration of such mechanisms, as we already stated. However, by essence these mechanisms (moderation and exception clauses) should be based exclusively on the specific

______ 3 CCR/R(93)5, see Article 17

Article 17






indicator, as the latter is the element in a salary adjustment procedure that adjusts the purchasing power uniformly in all places of employment and for pensioners.

The mechanisms that your advisors have been proposing so far are distorting the basic figures provided by the ISRP and Eurostat, rendering correction mechanisms unnecessarily complex, wilfully failing to conform with the provided statistics, and being legally unsafe and socially unacceptable. The EPO would therefore vastly deviate from all other comparable International Organisations in Europe (EU and Co-ordinated Organisations) in such a sensitive area. Is this your mandate?

The consultants have just provided an additional document on 23 March 2020 showing that the solutions we propose have the potential of achieving the savings you are looking for whilst preserving the essential principles on which staff cannot compromise.

You have the chance to depart from your predecessor’s regulation and implementation policy, thereby succeeding in re-establishing social dialogue according to mandate and being seen as the President fully trusting staff to be able to carry it out.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Sampels Acting Chairman of the Central Staff Committee




ANNEX

CHAPTER VIII

OTHER ARRANGEMENTS

Article ..

Compensatory adjustment at 1 July 2020

Salary scales shall be adjusted at 1 July 2020 by a percentage equal to half of the average weighted trend in Harmonised Index for Consumer Prices for the European Union for the period 1 July 2019 – 1 July 2020 as provided by Eurostat.






The above contains many acronyms, but it's self-contained in the sense that people who aren't familiar with EPO affairs can mostly catch up. As the Central Staff Committee put it at the time, more concisely (citing the Donald Trump-connected Mercer 'study'):

Following the flawed Financial Study of Oliver Wyman and Mercer, Mr Campinos is still putting measure 1 on the table for approval in the coming June council. His proposal is not viable (many technical and legal problems) and provides a mechanism for continuously cutting the purchasing power of active staff and pensioners. It is certainly not what staff deserves after the massive efforts expected at times of a pandemic. It would be perceived as adding insult to injury. In view of the coming discussions, the Central Staff Committee (CSC) has sent Mr Campinos an open letter available here.


There's a similar passage or paragraph in the letter. For those who wish to know more about the notorious 'study', read this.

Recent Techrights' Posts

An Illusion and Cult Worship of Magnitude (Ubiquity as "Victory")
GNU has been around for over 40 years and it'll likely continue to exist for another 40 (in some form)
Wall Street Does Not Care About Microsoft's Impending (August) Layoffs, It Believes Lies From Microsoft, Whose Debt Grows Rapidly
If Microsoft is doing so well and swimming in money, why so many cuts (about 29,000 layoffs so far this year)?
Riot for peace & Love: Catholic Influencers and Digital Missionaries welcome Jubilee of Youth
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Links 31/07/2025: Spotify Collapses and Spotify Now Forcing Some Users to Undergo Face-Scanning
Links for the day
A Lot of Supposedly "Successful" Businesses Are Just Debt-Racking Vessels Without Any Prospects of Financial Sustainability
The probability of bankruptcy of any business is more than 0%
theregister.com: The Voice of Microsoft US?
It basically sold out
Yes, You Can Love and Adore Things Whilst Also Criticising Them
Is society being divided and groomed/primed to be resistant to constructive criticism?
Links 31/07/2025: War in Ukraine, Security News, and Cyberattacks Against Journalists on the Rise
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/07/2025: Fake Money and Gemini Diaries
Links for the day
Google: From Pointing to Relevant Sites to Pointing to Social Control Media to Actually Parroting Social Control Media as "Facts"
Google has become a misinformation company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 30, 2025
How to Report Apple Layoffs Without Saying the "L" Word
don't look for the "L" word
Wayland Considered Harmful (to GNU/Linux Adoption)
it's not limited to games
My Experience With Judges Has been Positive, But We Must Still Pursue SLAPP Reform in the United Kingdom
We believe it'll be a "feather in the cap" if we can help change laws in the UK to better protect investigative reporters
Slopwatch Makes the Web Better
Remember what happened to BetaNews?
Slopwatch: Google News is Pumping in Lots of Web Traffic Into Fake Sites That Say "Linux"
somewhere between 30% and 40% of today's "news" about "Linux", as seen by Google News, is LLM slop
Links 30/07/2025: Climate Calamities Highlighted, Kyrgyzstan Crackdown on Expression/Freedoms
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Watson’s List of Limits, Lysenko 2000
Links for the day
Some People See What Others See... But Only 40 Years Later
When people deviate from "the norm" they typically get ridiculed and dismissed as "crazy"
Links 30/07/2025: Tea Class Action and Google Killing the Web With Slop
Links for the day
Last Month Our IRC Community Turned 17
Funnily enough we never missed a single day when it comes to logging
"The Unix Kernel"
Linux was inspired by MINIX
The Register Relays Microsoft Marketing, Dubs That Marketing "Research"
Hours ago they did a "Microsoft sez" piece
Dealing With Sociopaths, Liars, and Cranks
A dysfunctional society such as this would never develop
Not Owning Mobile Phones
It's not about resistance; it's common sense
Google 'Search' is Fast Becoming No Better Than Social Control Media Infested With Bots
Google emerged almost 30 years ago as a company looking to organise the Web and direct people towards informative pages. That Google is dead.
PCLinuxOS Had Functional Backups Before the House Fire, the Site Will be Restored in New Webhost
This is the direction we want for GNU/Linux, not some IBM sales strategy
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Two Sides of Me and "Hooked on Cosmic Voyage"
Links for the day
Microsoft Will Continue Resorting to Crimes in Order to Keep GNU/Linux Usage Down
It is a real problem and we'll revisit it later this week
GAFAM 'Revolving Doors' at The Register and a "Bribe Price List"
"an analyst at Microsoft"
Microsoft Rapidly Shrinking (No, It's Not About Efficiency, It's About Unbearable Debt)
We'll soon see how much debt grew in the past quarter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Corruption is the Standard Operating Procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The EPO is a dictatorship that stains Europe
Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) at the European Patent Office (EPO) Requests an Urgent Meeting to Avoid Abolishing the Office
This is dictatorship led by the most corrupt
Slopwatch: Fake 'Linux' 'Articles' and Spamfarms/Slopfarms
at least 5 fake articles in one day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Wayland Unfit for Use and LLM Slop Faking One's Language Skills With Robot Communications
Links for the day
Before the OSI Was Bribed and Hijacked by Microsoft via GitHub and Compromised Management...
The OSI isn't even remotely "woke"
Nailing the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype Bubble
So-called "hey hi" as they define it now is all about large companies or regimes remotely controlling the processes running on your machine and even your very own behaviour on your machine, which is in effect no longer your machine but some remotely controlled apparatus
The OSI Has Been Silent for Over 3 Weeks, It Has a Severe Trust Issue After Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary GitHub
OSI took a lot of money from Microsoft to become a Microsoft lobbyist
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users" Now as a T-shirt
That's shown along the sidebar
Bribery is OK If You Work for Microsoft (No Punishment Expected)
It's very troubling and a symptom of a broken society/system when particular laws or rules are applied and enforced against some people but not against others
Links 29/07/2025: Bad Climate and "Fair Software Licensing" Blasts Microsoft
Links for the day
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025