Bonum Certa Men Certa

As Expected, Minimal Pseudo Compliance From EPO Management, Adding Insult to Injury

Earlier this month: Two Months of ILO-AT Non-Compliance at the EPO and a Decade of a Docile Administrative Council That Approves Illegal Proposals

Extension of strike judgments to all staff

Summary: SUEPO Central, the core of the staff union of EPO staff (almost 7,000 workers at the EPO, most of whom are SUEPO members), has strong words about the EPO's attitude and stance, which is perhaps unsurprising but still extremely disappointing

MORE than two months after the historic judgements of ILO-AT the EPO's President, António Campinos, writes internally to staff about Benoît Battistelli's strike regulations being ruled unlawful. Almost a decade too late!



The staff union is rightly upset and understandably circulates another publication among members. We've decided to reproduce it below, in full, as HTML:

23 September 2021 su21024cp – 0.2.1/5.1/5.2

Extension of strike judgments to all staff “No moral damages. No apology.” What next?



In his Communiqué of 14 September, Mr Campinos finally detailed the Office’s approach regarding the strike judgments of the 132nd session of the ILOAT. The Office intends to apply the outcome of the judgments to all staff on strike since July 2013 only insofar as they concern excessive strike deductions or for unauthorised absence on 2 and 3 July 2013. No moral damages will be awarded to those who neither filed a complaint in front of the Tribunal nor an application to intervene1. In a meeting with the Central Staff Committee (CSC) on 15 September, Mr Campinos even strongly excluded any form of apology from the Organisation to its staff.

The Office intends to conclude all payments by the end of the year. For the time being, we strongly recommend that you maintain your pending complaints and applications to intervene. This paper provides more details.

Meeting with the President: Lessons (not) learnt On 15 September, the staff representation could address for the first time directly with Mr Campinos

the ILOAT strike judgments of 7 July. The staff representation argued that all EPO staff had been adversely prejudiced by the violation of their fundamental right to strike and by abuses of power. An International Organisation cannot take a fundamental right from its staff, give it back more than 8 years later and pretend that nothing happened. In his reply, Mr Campinos threatened to reduce cash injections into the pension reserve funds if he were to grant moral damages to all staff. Mr Campinos added that we should understand that in our Organisation, it’s just about moving money from one place to another. One could expect that upper management could be held accountable for designing HR policies violating fundamental rights, but Mr Campinos preemptively warned anyone who could point the finger at his services which he fully entrusts with further reforms.

The staff representation then suggested that the Organisation takes responsibility for mistakes of the past by at least apologizing to its staff. Mr Campinos bursted out in anger and shouted that he would not apologize and that we would never get an apology from him. With this statement, Mr Campinos confirms that he not only takes full responsibility for the continued policies during the first 3 years of his mandate, but also fully endorses the Battistelli administration. Mr Campinos reproached the staff representation to be not constructive when willing to discuss events that happened ages ago and added that we may have won this one but we don’t win 8 out of 10 of our

_____________ 1 According to Laurent Germond, Director Employment Law, the Office identified 38 complaints still pending in front of the Tribunal, some of them being joined by interveners.




cases. Here, Mr Campinos confused quality and production: in terms of legal procedures, some are more fundamental than others.

In the meeting, Laurent Germond, Director Employment Law, recalled that the Tribunal’s statute does not foresee any class action procedure and that complaints will remain of an individual nature. The Office intends to apply the outcome of the judgments to all staff on strike since July 2013 only insofar as they concern excessive strike deductions or for unauthorised absence on 2 and 3 July 2013.

SUEPO expresses its solidarity to all staff in the HR Department who are now striving to conclude all payments by the end of year and have to repair the damages caused by their upper management.

What next?

Concerning the still running procedures against the strike regulations, we recommend the following:

I. Case AT-5 5167: Mr Battistelli abused his power by not organising the UNITY ballot

In his Communiqué of 14 September and as confirmed in front of the staff representation, Mr Campinos excludes the award of moral damages to all staff who were deprived of their right to vote in the ballot for the strike of the “UNITY initative” of 16 May 2014.

SUEPO recommends that complainants and those who file applications to intervene (see instructions here) maintain their procedures.

II. Case AT-5 5179: the SUEPO called strike of 2 July 2013 was lawful

In his Communiqué of 14 September and as confirmed in front of the staff representation, Mr Campinos intends to apply the outcome of Judgment 4433, but only partially, to all those employees who participated in the industrial action of 2 and 3 July 2013. The unlawful deductions for unauthorised absence will be reimbursed, the threatening letter from Principal Director Human Resources (Ms Bergot at the material time) will be removed from the personal file, but no moral damages will be awarded.

SUEPO recommends that complainants and those who file applications to intervene (see instructions here) maintain their procedures.

III. Management review MR/2021-0025
Excessive strike deductions of the January 2021 for the December 2020 strike


Mr Campinos had rejected the management review in a decision dated 21 June 2021.

In his Communiqué of 14 September, Mr Campinos announces that the outcome of Judgment No. 4435 will be applied to all those employees who went on strike since the introduction of CA/D 5/13. This concerns as well the deductions made on the January 2021 salary slip which are now expected to be reimbursed with interests at 5% per annum, less the amounts which could have been deducted on the basis of 1/30th (as applicable prior to the introduction of CA/D 5/13).

SUEPO considers it not necessary that all concerned staff file a mass appeal against the rejection decision for MR/2021-0025 dated 21 June 2021.




IV. Case AT-5 5244: Excessive strike deductions of 1/20th are unlawful and punitive

The extension of the outcome of Judgment No. 4435 concerns the strike deductions during the period of October 2013 until April 2016 covered by this case and which are now expected to be reimbursed with interests at 5% per annum, less the amounts which could have been deducted on the basis of 1/30th (as applicable prior to the introduction of CA/D 5/13).

As long as the payments are not concluded, SUEPO recommends that complainants and those who file applications to intervene (see instructions here) maintain their procedures.

Conclusion The still pending complaints and the filing of hundreds of applications to intervene since the announcement of the strike judgments on 7 July may have been one of the reasons for Mr Campinos to extend the outcome of some of the judgments to all staff.

We regret that Mr Campinos only decided to opt for a partial extension of the outcome excluding noticeably moral damages. This shows once again that in order to fully safeguard their rights, EPO staff must go to litigation.

SUEPO Central


As a side note, I was having a very productive today. Had a long (and long-distance) call with political entities willing to do something about EPO abuses. Tons of time and energy has been poured into it (research and talking/communicating), but it needs to be done and we hope to have some breakthrough soon. We'll refrain from sharing any more details as they can jeopardise the process at this relatively early stage.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
In Göteborg
Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
Justice for Wildlife
animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
Boys will be boys
Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
We may never know the dialogue or its nature
Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
Old Isn't Always Inadequate
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
The Monkey Business of Rust People
Compatibility won't matter
Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
avoid many perils of today's Web
Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
Links for the day
4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025
Links 29/09/2025: Opposition to Surveillance Giant Google and Conflicts Worldwide (Moldova Sides With EU)
Links for the day
Why the EPO Never Managed to Silence Us (After Over a Decade of Trying)
Firms like Mishcon de Reya and Brett Wilson LLP contribute to a bad stigma, staining the entire occupation
Links 29/09/2025: Datacenter Fires and "Too Much Internet Use Is Changing Teenage Brains"
Links for the day
Almost a Couple of Years After Microsoft Hijacked the Name 'Sudo' (to Describe Unrelated Windows Stuff) Microsoft Canonical Breaks Sudo in Ubuntu
These are vandals in "goodwill" or "security" clothing
Does the Good Law Project (GLP) Know the Director of Brett Wilson LLP Deems It OK to Endorse Violent Actions Against Trans People?
We were miffed to see this morning's report
Names Are Not Unique IDs and the UK Government's "Digital ID System" Would be a Nightmare
Digital surveillance, "apps", and worse (all the time)
What is Roy and Rianne's Righteously Royalty-free RSS Reader?
A news reader that uses OPML files and parses RSS feeds
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in 5 Days
We should be talking about software freedom, not "Open Source"
It Feels Like Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Tacitly Admitted That It Defamed Me
It arguably admitted many other things by refusing to deny or address them (altogether)
Stefano Maffulli's Front Page Mentions "AI" 11 Times
They're more focused on slop (plagiarism) than sharing or Software Freedom
CMS Rot
With "modern" (bloated) content management systems (CMSs) there is a long chain of dependencies
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 28, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 28, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About Linux 6.17 and Microsoft Meddling in Linux Development
today's Slopwatch is short because the picks are from Sunday
Gemini Links 29/09/2025: The Labor Wars and Retro
Links for the day