Bonum Certa Men Certa

Inside the EPO During Corona: Managers Don't Think of the Children, Cut Their Budget for First Time in Half a Century

Not what staff signed up for when joining the Office, relocating to another country along with family members

Chair/authority
What comes next? Who faces the next round of cuts?



Baby: What comes nextSummary: The systematic attack on staff's rights and welfare shows no signs of stopping; the so-called 'president', who isn't even showing up for meetings with staff, has turned Europe's second-largest institution from cash cow into a cash laundering apparatus that eats its own workers

THE management of the EPO continues to crush the staff to amass more money to gamble with (for personal gain). This is a crime. Textbook definition of looting, class warfare, or trickle-up effect (taking from the poor and/or the working class to enrich those who are already very rich). Europe's reputation is in trouble/peril when its second-largest institution, in effect a monopoly, acts no better than the Mafia (it's just presented in a more positive light owing to complicit, supine and sometimes bribed media).



The EPO is ruining health, relationships and even whole families. With a pandemic raging the EPO's management doubles down on that objective, leveraging the worst possible time to implement further oppressive sanctions.

"With a pandemic raging the EPO's management doubles down on that objective, leveraging the worst possible time to implement further oppressive sanctions."As recently as yesterday we published a copy of this document in English [PDF] about consultation regarding allowances for kids. Office staff might be getting a new chair, but the big benefits are going away because António Campinos robs the staff while Benoît Battistelli et al steal EPO budget by gambling it away.

Here they go again:

Since the official announcements of 24 and 30 July 2020, the staff representation has received an impressive number of reactions from staff, confirming that the planned Education and Childcare Reform is a sensitive topic affecting our families and colleagues.

The President has revised the initial timeline: his aim is now to present a new scheme to the Budget and Finance Committee in May 2021 and the Administrative Council in June 2021. The President has already decided of his own volition to implement measures related to school children (aged 4 to the finalisation of secondary schools) for the school year 2022-2023. He has also announced that the timetable for implementing measures for other categories of children will be finalised in the course of the working-group discussions.

Our scheme goes back to that of the Co-ordinated Organisations since 1977 and has been amended over time, either to improve the benefits or to extend eligibility to other categories of staff. For the first time in the history of the EPO, a President has tabled a proposal that will reduce the overall budget and will have a very negative impact on some of those eligible to date. It will thus have an impact on the attendance and capacity of schools currently in use.

For these reasons, and in order to formulate an opinion and prepare counter-proposals, the staff representation believes than an in-depth financial and social impact study is necessary. Postponement will give more time for this.


The full sheet contains some of the same paragraphs and reads as follows:



Munich 03.09.2020 sc20127cp – 0.2.1/4.2.2

Education and Childcare Reform Moving ahead

Since the official announcements of 24 and 30 July 2020, the staff representation has received an impressive number of reactions from staff, confirming that the planned Education and Childcare Reform is a sensitive topic affecting our families and colleagues.

The staff representation was involved in a Working Group only once within the framework of a meeting with the administration which took place on 21 July. We received the supportive documents on 17 July, only one working day before the meeting. Our report on that meeting can be found here.

Timeline for consultation / implementation

The original timeline foresaw the submission of a final proposal for opinion to the General Consultative Committee on the 1st of October and for decision to the Administrative Council in December 2020. This would have left minimal or no margins for discussions.

The President revised the timeline: it was announced on 30 July 2020 that “[t]he aim is now to present a new scheme to the Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) in May 2021 and the Administrative Council in June 2021”. The staff representation welcomes this move as it will give more time to perform a complete impact study.

The President has already decided of his own volition that “measures related to school children (aged 4 to the finalisation of secondary schools) will be implemented for the school year 2022-2023”. He has also announced that ”[t]he timetable for implementing measures for other categories of children will be finalised in the course of the working group discussions”.

Impact study

Our education allowance scheme goes back to that of the Co-ordinated Organisations since 1977 and has been amended over time (see CA/D 6/80, CA/D 13/84, CA/D 2/98 and CA/D 10/02), either to improve the benefits or to extend eligibility to other categories of staff. For the first time in the history of the EPO, a President has tabled a proposal that will reduce the overall budget and will have a very negative impact on some of those eligible to date. It will thus have an impact on the attendance and capacity of schools currently in use. Furthermore, in the past, when the scheme was amended, a survey was conducted at the request of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) to estimate the annual costs of the proposed amendments (see e.g. CA/88/84).

For these reasons, and in order to formulate an opinion and prepare counter-proposals, the staff representation believes than an in-depth financial and social impact study is necessary.

Your Central Staff Committee



So there's still no genuine dialogue at the Office; everything is being sold away, outsourced, sabotaged, looted. The so-called 'president' cannot be bothered to listen to staff and definitely won't incorporate any of the representation's suggestions.

Less than a week after the above publication was issued the so-called 'president' couldn't even bother attending the meeting, citing health reasons (going to work without a mask and without socially distancing oneself from colleagues can lead to that).

The Central Staff Committee circulated the following letter/report:

Munich 15.09.2020 sc20136cp – 0.2.1

Non-meeting on 9 September

Dear colleagues,

The President had scheduled a meeting with the CSC on 9 September. The meeting took indeed place but, to our surprise, without the President, who could not attend for health reasons. We wish him a speedy recovery here. Instead Ms Seegert chaired the meeting. The meeting started with a human touch, with new colleagues Mr Andreas Sattler and Mr Kwai Hong Ip introducing themselves. We welcome them and wish them every success in their new positions.

We first asked to address the rewards exercise in 2020. In our view, issues remain as in the previous exercises: gender-related discrimination, handling sick leave, part-time, covert restriction for promotion, excessive focus on production, unpredictability and opaqueness in attributing (collaborative) bonuses. PD43 (and VP1) explained that we were all wrong but that the exercise was keeping improving1. We now hope that the extra effort of staff in corona times will be decently rewarded next year. We reiterated our request for receiving the statistical data on the distribution of the rewards as already requested in written form.

The President had proposed further agenda items:

Reform of the composition of the Appeals Committee

A dedicated working group chaired by Ms Seegert herself had met twice on this topic. This was enough to arrive at irreconcilable positions as regards the eligibility of staff to sit on the Appeals Committee2. The President had already decided before the meeting to adjourn the reform sine die).

New Normal

We asked for meaningful involvement at an early stage and to be included in the New Normal taskforce, since the New Normal will have a huge impact on the whole organization and thus

_______ 1 For more details, everyone can read the President’s announcement on the Intranet. 2 Essentially as regard the criterion for eligibility. Presently only elected staff representatives can be appointed on the ApC. In future, the Office would like to allow only staff without any appeal pending to sit as members on the ApC.




a huge impact on all staff. The Administration repeated their previous position that the consultation of the Staff Representation will take place after they will have defined their policy on what New Normal should look. The Administration further announced that they would launch an online survey soon3. We would have liked to ask again personally the President to be involved early enough to contribute to sketching the big picture. Being involved in the preparation of a survey was standard even in the Battistelli era.

Education and Childcare Reform

We repeated what we had already published online. At least the President’s decision to postpone the reform has one good side: it will give more time for an in-depth financial and social impact study. The working group will meet again on 22 September, hopefully with enough information to start moving forward on this topic. To this end we requested additional statistical data by site, schools and educational stages.

Conclusion

Ms Seegert concluded by thanking all for the “constructive” meeting. We for our part cannot help but think that the meeting was largely unsuccessful. On a more hopeful note: the President used to start discussing with us with the motto: “let us meet in the middle of the bridge”. This presupposes that we actually meet and talk. The next CSC meeting with the President is currently scheduled on 18 November, in 2020...

Your CSC

_______ 3 By the time this report is out, the survey might even be ongoing.



The next meeting was due two days ago, but there's no 'spoiler' yet.

Either way, it seems abundantly clear and apparent there's nobody to talk to at the Office. They just keep crushing the staff whilst only ever pretending that staff agrees to that. No wonder there's no recruitment ongoing and quality of everything (staff welfare, staff experience, patents) rapidly decreases. To the point where European software patents are becoming 'acceptable', even if they're against the law and actual courts reject those. We'll say more about such patents in our next post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

France: Apple and Microsoft Down, GNU/Linux Up to New Record Levels
How will tariffs against France impact things in the coming months?
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: What Was Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
We hope to finish this whole lot within a week, then move on to election, lobbying etc.
Techrights Will Spend the Next Few Years Writing a Lot About Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
It's a growing problem
The State of EPO Staff's Health in Rijswijk or The Hague
We're going to cover the EPO some more later in the month
NVIDIA Corp Lost 36% of Its "Value" Since Cheeto Inauguration, But "Gen Hey Hi" (GenAI) is Totally Not a Bubble
Selling loads of unneeded hardware based on hysterical hype; like selling shovels during a Gold Rush
 
Taking a Moral Stand Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and the Worst Offenders/Facilitators
Any other stance would sidle with moral depravity or moral hazard
Links 06/04/2025: Many New Acts of Repression and Elements of Financial Depression
Links for the day
In Qatar GNU/Linux Rose From Under 1% to Over 4% in Two Years (or Over 5% If Counting ChromeOS)
It's a big improvement compared to what we saw last year
LLM Scrapers Are a Nuisance, But They're Also a Reminder It's Time to Make Your Site Static
Perhaps the best protection is the ability to endure surges
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 05, 2025
Links 06/04/2025: Attacks on Education, Fake Patents, and Fake (Illegal) Patent Courts
Links for the day
Links 05/04/2025: Tariffs Backfiring, YouTuber Arrested, X/Twitter Set to be Fined
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Offline is For Everyone, Copyright Colonialism, and More
Links for the day
Links 05/04/2025: TikTok Unsold (Still), Royal Society is Dead
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Growing in East Asia, Windows by Default No More?
GNU/Linux is now on the shelf
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux 'Articles' From Linux-Hostile LLMs
It is almost always negative things and nobody can be held responsible for it except the charlatans prompting the LLMs
Links 05/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) "Sale Looks Highly Imminent" (US), Stock Market Drowning in Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Moving Plants, No to Smartwatches, RAID Hygiene
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 04, 2025
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025