EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Related: Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) in The Hague Taking Action to Rectify Cuts to Families of Workers | EPO Discriminates Against Families of Its Own Workers, the Union Explains Legal Basis Upon Which It's Likely Illegal and Must be Challenged
Lately, including earlier today, we have been focusing on patent affairs in Poland. Those are connected to and similar to EPO corruption, led by Benoît Battistelli and the fellow Frenchman António Campinos, who is deeply connected to the corruption in Poland via Alicante. We shall cover this some other time.
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office (that term typically means taking something away from staff, i.e. yet another attack on workers).
The Central Staff wrote:
Our report and opinion: Parenthood leave reformDear Colleagues,
The General Consultative Committee (GCC) met by videoconference on 6 May 2025. The following items were on the agenda of the meeting and the Central Staff Committee (CSC) members of the GCC raised their concerns and tried to get further clarifications:
- Towards a unified and more inclusive parenthood leave scheme (parenthood reform) – for consultation GCC/DOC 6/2025
- ECR guidelines (application of education and childcare reform) – for information GCC/DOC 7/2025
Following the letter from the CSC requesting consultation on the item agenda GCC/DOC 7/2025, the Chair proposed to re-table the document for consultation. As the two weeks deadline for submission of the document for consultation could not be met, the Chair additionally proposed to re-table the document in the next GCC of 2 June. The CSC members of the GCC agreed to this proposal.
It's a new paper and "[t]he detailed opinion by the CSC members of the GCC on GCC/DOC 6/2025 is annexed to this paper," they said.
We reproduce this today as HTML, GemText, and plain text below:
Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du PersonnelMunich, 10-06-2025
sc25037cpReport on the GCC meeting of 6 May 2025
Dear Colleagues,
The General Consultative Committee (GCC) met by videoconference on 6 May 2025. The following items were on the agenda of the meeting and the CSC members of the GCC raised their concerns and tried to get further clarifications:
• Towards a unified and more inclusive parenthood leave scheme (parenthood reform) – for consultation GCC/DOC 6/2025
• ECR guidelines (application of education and childcare reform) – for information GCC/DOC 7/2025
Following the letter from the CSC requesting consultation on the item agenda GCC/DOC 7/2025, the Chair proposed to re-table the document for consultation. As the two weeks deadline for submission of the document for consultation could not be met, the Chair additionally proposed to re-table the document in the next GCC of 2 June. The CSC members of the GCC agreed to this proposal.
The detailed opinion by the CSC members of the GCC on GCC/DOC 6/2025 is annexed to this paper.
The Central Staff Committee
Opinion on GCC/DOC 06/2025:
Towards a unified and more inclusive parenthood leave scheme (parenthood reform)
The CSC members of the GCC give the following opinion on the reform of maternity, adoption, and special leave for the birth of a child and replacement with parenthood leave, as outlined in GCC/DOC 06/2025.
Improvements and points of agreement
The document comprises a number of improvements to our regulations. The main improvement being the removal of unequal treatment that was present between those who welcomed a child through birth or adoption, with those who welcomed a child via other means. This different treatment was not justified as the difference in situation was in many cases only due to varying bureaucratic processes and national laws rather than a difference that would warrant some parents being granted adoption leave of at least 20 weeks and others only special leave of 2 weeks. This amendment to the regulations, triggered by litigation from staff, is fully welcomed by the staff representation. We support that all parents should be entitled to the same provisions provided for the purpose of welcoming their new child into their family, and this particular amendment to the regulations will put an end to the discrimination faced by a group of staff members. Some other positive changes include the extension of eligibility of parenthood leave to those who go through stillbirth, and the small increase of special leave for the death of a child. Staff representation raised the concern of those who suffer neonatal death, and the fact that it is not explicitly covered in the proposed regulations. Furthermore, since the proposed regulations define a requirement to provide “all officially required documents” that “demonstrate a long-term legal responsibility for a child”, a doubt remains. When asked during the GCC, the administration confirmed that should any parent (primary or secondary caregiver) experience the loss of a child in the neonatal period, they will remain entitled to the provisions of parenthood leave, since the eligibility criteria are required to be met at the moment of welcoming a child. They further stated that this would be added to the FAQ on the intranet, a move welcomed by the staff representation.Outstanding issues with the amendments
Regarding concerns raised by Staff Representation where no agreement was found, one point was on the clarity that has been removed from birthing families regarding the documentation required. In the current regulations, it is very clear that a medical certificate of pregnancy and a birth certificate are the documents required for birthing families. However, now the documents required are not specified, and a threat was introduced that if the documents submitted are not considered the appropriate ones, that the leave will be deemed an unauthorized absence. During the GCC the administration stated that these documents would remain sufficient for the birthing families, and that this information would be included in the FAQ on the intranet. Other issues that were raised, but maintained by the administration were the introduction of “the leave must be taken without interruption”, the choice of labels for the parents, and the abolition of leave for courses for adoptive parents.Timeline of the reform
Regarding the consultation on this reform, we had three meetings on the topic, on 16 May, 13 June, 15 November. The first meeting was held prior to receiving any document, just 2 substantive slides were presented outlining the reform. We provided a written document in response to the slides. During the second meeting, we discussed issues in the first draft of the amendments, including the
fact that the regulations had been drafted in such a way to cut the length of leave given to birthing mothers in certain circumstances, which the administration admitted was an error and later corrected. We pointed to the notice periods that had been introduced would result in mothers and fathers needing to guess to date of the birth, a month in advance, when choosing the start date of the parenthood leave, which again the administration corrected by deleting in the next draft. The removal of the possibility for adoptive parents to share leave when they are both employees was also discussed at length, another point which was reintroduced in the subsequent draft. The third meeting was spent discussing which of the issues raised by Staff Representation had been addressed in the second draft, and which the administration maintained their earlier position on.
In total, this reform comprising a full re-drafting of the regulations has seen only 3 hours of consultation with Staff Representation over a year, although much of the feedback from staff representation was required to resolve errors, improve the clarity of the document and avoid HR pain points. Despite one year having elapsed between the first discussion on the topic and the document being submitted to the GCC, only few opportunities were taken to try to fix the problems identified with the re-drafted regulations as they are presented here, and many still remain.
Notable omissions from the “modernisation”
We find it also important to note some vital considerations that have been omitted from this very late “modernisation” of our regulations. One of the headings of the CA document refers to “strengthening the role of secondary caregivers”. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the reform does not do. Starting with the terms themselves that have been used, primary and secondary caregiver only act to reenforce the gendered stereotypes around provision of childcare, and primary and secondary suggest a ranking rather than being neutral identifiers. More importantly, across Europe, the trend is to provide additional leave to fathers as one measure to address gender inequality or “strengthen” the role of fathers. The Nordic countries are well known for their extensive provisions for paternity and parental leave for fathers, in Spain the law was recently changed to provide 16 weeks to fathers, and closer to home in the Netherlands fathers receive 7 weeks leave for the birth of a child. In this reform, other than the 5 extra days leave for the special cases, the only increase in leave for fathers is if their partner, who must also work at the Office, forfeits part of her entitlement to give to the father. It is unfortunate that this is all that can be provided in terms of improving gender equality on this sensitive topic. In addition, we raised the issue that the fact that this leave entitlement can only be transferred once and prior to the start of their leave may end up binding parents into agreements that were made prior to birth. We asked during the GCC if mothers would be called back to work or requested to take other leave, or could they cancel the transfer request, and the administration stated that in exceptional circumstances, cancellation would be possible. We also noted that this policy introduces the possibility of managerial pressure, and asked that managers be advised to never suggest to a expectant mother that she should transfer some leave in order to return to work sooner after the birth.Paid breastfeeding breaks also refused consideration
The final point is the refusal of the administration to bring our massively outdated regulations on the issue of paid breastfeeding breaks in-line with the rest of Europe. Paid breastfeeding breaks are regulated in the ILO Maternity protection convention 183 of 2000, introduced 25 years ago, the very same convention that was cited by the administration as being the reason we were required to provide a minimum of 14 weeks leave to birthing mothers. Paid breastfeeding breaks were included in the EU Council Directive 92/85/EEC in 2010, and have since been implemented in the national legislation of practically every EU member state. The World Health Organisation recommends
provisions be given to working mothers for paid breastfeeding breaks since breastfeeding has been proven to significantly improve the health of both mother and child, and investments into increasing breastfeeding has been found to provide 35 fold return on investment. Yet, we still have no regulations, only a communique dating back to 2010 hidden in the depths of the intranet. Mothers are told that they can take breaks to breastfeed whenever they like, just like every other EPO employee, but they still must complete the same amount of work as those not breastfeeding, thus by definition the breaks are unpaid.
In 2010, staff representation submitted appeals on the issue of our breastfeeding policy (or lack thereof) being significantly less favourable than those in the host states, which when noted by staff representation during the GCC, triggered interruptions from the chair to move on. More recently, this point has been raised by the Staff Representation during all three technical meetings, in a written document to the administration, in a meeting with VP1, and at the COHSEC in February. At every instance, the administration have refused to enter into any discussion on the topic, and stated that no changes will be made now. However, the last review of the regulations on this topic was 21 years ago, which doesn’t give much confidence that the topic will be allowed back on the table anytime soon. We asked the administration during the GCC if the closure of this reform, without any discussion of paid breastfeeding, should lead us to the conclusion that social dialogue on the topic has been refused. We received the response that we were fortunate to have been allowed to speak on the subject as it was claimed by the administration to be unrelated to the parenthood reform and that indeed the discussion on the topic was closed.
The CSC members of the GCC
Notice how cruel some of these policies are towards mothers. The governments in Europe moan about low birth rates; meanwhile the Office that breaks the law to increase profits isn't helping pregnant women or women with young children. So these governments basically prioritise big businesses based outside Europe, not European mothers. The salaries also decrease, which lessens the incentive to bear children. █