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Summary: In an act of apparent union-busting, the EPO seems to be replacing unionised staff with low-paid and new staff, which is moreover subjected to hot-desking, rendering a culture of networking for collective action a lot harder

WITH an upcoming election (a real one, not the phony coronation of Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos, where the 'voters' receive bribes), the staff union of the EPO (SUEPO) distributes this document about a meeting which took place 4 days ago.

Earlier this month the SUEPO Munich Chairman’s report said that the Office had laid off all the canteen staff and also mentioned the financial problems: "The membership income is however decreasing slowly since more staff are going on pension than are hired by the EPO."

This concern is now echoed here:

He reminded everyone that the salary adjustment entered into force at the beginning of the year. Since the membership fees are connected to the salary scale (2,6% of the basic salary of the first step in every grade), these will also increase accordingly.

Also, the chair mentioned that although the number of members is stable the ration between Active and Non-active members is moving towards the Non-active ones. These are the members going in pension at reduced membership fee. As such in the midterm the fees will be raised to cover the costs.

As noted in a video last week, it seems like the EPO hopes to replace qualified and experienced examiners with a bunch of scabs who won't unionise and can barely afford to, either (low salaries). The EPO bragged about hiring such low-paid staff earlier this month in its official blog. ⬆