Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Year After the Last EPO Strike Another One May be Brewing

Related: With EPO 'Strike Regulations' Belatedly Ruled Unlawful, EPO Management May be Lowering the Salary Even Further by Introducing Outside 'Temps' or Casual Workers | EPO Cannot and Will Not Self-Regulate (“financialisation” means institutions get rid of their own staff)

EPO salary cut
Yes, a de facto salary cut each year



Summary: The EPO is being crushed (or turned into a rubber-stamping pipeline) by Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; EPO staff isn't tolerating it

A YEAR ago (one year minus 2 days) the EPO's staff went on strike; back then they were expected to ask for permission/authorisation and even run a vote for it, based on some unlawful regulations. Today we look at or take stock of last year's events, the principal reason for the strike, and the current situation. Some of it is history, but the issues persist and have in fact gotten worse since last year.



Earlier today (this morning) staff representatives in Munich circulated a message attributed to the Central Staff Committee (CSC) of the EPO. To quote: "The result of the Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP) has now been published on the intranet by the administration, albeit in an obscured manner buried among various topics discussed in the last GCC. In this paper, we try to give more insight into the outcome of the SAP and break down the steps to arrive at the result for 1 January 2022."

The publication is dated 3 days ago [PDF] and it suggests that last year's warnings were not in vain. While inflation soars the pays stays unchanged; in the words of the representatives: "The adjustment of 0% in 2022 and the eventual adjustment by the pitifully low capped adjustments should be understood as a loss in purchasing power because of the inflation and the increase in the cost of living. Note that the SAP has a disastrous effect not only on our salaries, but also on our allowances and pensions. Staff will now suffer from the combination of Battistelli and Campinos reforms."

This ought not be surprising. They've been warning about this for a very long time. Campinos even pretended to have changed his mind. "No adjustment of salaries on 1 January 2022" simply means that yet again salaries are, in effect, decreasing. All this while the EPO exploits the pandemic to reduce operating costs and therefore profit more than ever before. Those profitd are then diverted into gambling and speculation; we know who stands to gain from that...

And sure, it's also illegal.

All of this is very familiar because almost exactly a year ago in Munich similar publications were circulated. Here are a couple of slideshows and publications from almost exactly one year ago, published by the Staff Committee Munich or Munich Staff Representatives (LSCMN):

Seven reasons to strike on 15 December 2020 [PDF]

Slides [PDF]

More slides [PDF]

These online "meetings" were "attended" by over a thousand people during the pandemic. More people than that would then go on strike.

Meanwhile, almost exactly one year ago from SUEPO Berlin Committee (same country) came the following publication, stating:

Enough is Enough



Defending our working conditions from permanent erosion. Defend your future.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Dear SUEPO Member,


During this year of pandemic our management has not hesitated to continue the attacks on our working conditions: Education allowance, career, contracts. The attack on our salaries and pensions through the application of an imposed Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP) is the latest and more brutal attack on all of us. It produces a cut of real salaries (purchasing power) and pensions of roughly 3%, which is more than one step in your grade. This is only the first year of the application of the President's SAP. More cuts are only a matter of time. If not fixed, the President's SAP mechanism will melt our salaries and pensions (-25% in 10 years, and -50% in 20 years, if we have similar adjustments in the future).

The office's financial figures for September 2020 already disclose that the alleged financial gap of 5.8 BN Euro has been reduced down to 0.3 BN EURO by the financial measures already taken. This is equivalent to the EPO's budget surplus for 2020. It can be expected that the alleged financial gap of 5.8 BN Euro is entirely CLOSED until the end of 2020 without any adaption of the SAP.

Even though the Covid-19 crisis led to a reduction in the GDP worldwide and so in Europe for this year, the OECD estimations show a significant GDP growth for the coming year, such that even better financial results can be expected for the EPO in the future. Also the assumption of an economic crisis in 2021 as made in the financial study phase I will obviously not materialise, which underlines the fact that the financial studies are unusable. This has been also acknowledged by the audit done by Ernst and Young.


In fact the previous SAP could just be continued without any financial risk for the EPO.

The President's SAP has not factual basis anymore1.

However, the President does neither seem to acknowledge the actual office's financial situation nor the positive economic future perspectives. He refutes that his SAP is erroneous and refuses to approach the Administrative Council in order to correct it as soon as possible.

Instead he alleges that staff would support his SAP, while staff representation would live in a bubble or in a different universe being remote and disconnected from you and your real interests.

He continues further with his salary adjustment procedure which will - just by the application for 2021 alone - result in gains of about 1 BN Euro until 2025 leading to excessive savings of more than 700 Million Euros on the expense of us, the staff at the EPO. These gains are half of the 2 BN Euro, which was supposed to been gained until 2038 on the part of staff by an amended SAP.

The President's mantra on the "redistribution" of excessive savings after three years (periodical settlements, Article 10 Implementing Rule for Article 64 ServRegs) is nothing more but a smoke screen: Currently the "redistribution" is neither designed nor defined. However, it is already clear that pensioners will never benefit from it, salary scales will not be adjusted therewith such that it will never be pensionable and it must be approved by the Administrative Council anyway.

In view of staff's high achievements in production and productivity over the last years the President's SAP is a slap in the face of every staff member and far from being fair or at all justified2.

SUEPO is decided to fight this new attack. The future of the Staff, the stability for our families, the respect of the engagements made (pensions, careers, schools) are more important that the big pile of cash the president wishes to have as a new toy. Nobody should play with our salaries and our pensions.

We ask every staff member to stand up and face these attacks. 2021 may be a year of social conflict until these attacks cease, which is why we need to send a strong political signal:

We3 call you for one day of strike4 during the plenum of the Administrative Council on 15 December.

Please do participate massively and talk with your colleagues about this strike.

We are STRONG TOGETHER!


ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Your SUEPO Berlin Committee

1 For further info please see the attached document "The SAP story" [PDF]
2 see also attached flyer "Two Sides of the Coin" [PDF]
3 This call for strike supported by all local SUEPO Committee and by SUEPO Central
4 See the respective notification of the strike to the President dated 07.12.2020, the underlying call for strike [PDF] as well as the results of the corresponding strike ballot. [PDF]





So many of the exact same issues persist. Now, with fewer "regulations" against strikes, a strike can be done or started spontaneously. It just requires a degree of coordination -- not that the captured (by patent litigation firms) would notice and cover that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025