Bonum Certa Men Certa

'Aversion to Change' Propaganda From the EPO Echoes or Parrots Lenin and Stalin

EPO spinners sharpen their propaganda machine and rewrite history

Lenin



Summary: The out-of-control EPO management is trying to fool the media by blaming staff representatives for getting fired, simply because they stood up to a highly abusive and megalomaniacal dictator

SUEPO lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld, whom we mentioned here before (e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]), spoke to Dutch media about EPO abuses. Zegveld knows these abuses quite well as she was actively involved even a year ago; she defended Hardon personally and wrote some letters on her behalf, too.



Today we present this SUEPO-provided translation [PDF] of this recent press article. It is similar to other articles which were previously mentioned here. It mostly repeats similar facts (it's relatively accurate) but adds some propaganda from the EPO's PR team. They pretend that change, not abuses, is the real issue here. They pretend that aversion to change is what it all boils down to. See the part under "Consequences" and also some noteworthy bits highlighted in yellow.

Thursday 28 January 2016, 6:17am

Employees protest against ‘intimidation’ at European Patent Office



RIJSWIJK - Employees of the European Patent Office (EPO) in Rijswijk are taking to the streets on Thursday afternoon. The employees are protesting against the poor work atmosphere within the company and the culture of ‘fear and intimidation’, as some describe it.

An immediate cause for the protest is the dismissal of two colleagues and the demotion of a third. The location of the patent office in Rijswijk is the largest international organisation in the Netherlands, with around 2,700 employees.

Those who were fired and demoted work at the EPO headquarters in Munich. They all work for the organisation’s own union. Last week, the sanctions led to a major protest in Germany, with an estimated 1,300 participants. But the upheaval has now reached Rijswijk as well.

Consequences

The staff claims that the punished employees are facing the consequences of the fact that they dared to criticise the ‘tyrannical’ head of EPO, Frenchman Benoit Battistelli. One of the fired employees is the Dutch chair of the union, Elizabeth Hardon. “It’s outright intimidation,” says the union’s lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld.

An EPO spokesperson says that Battistelli is in the middle of a major reorganisation to modernise the company. “And of course, that can lead to reactions among the staff. Everyone has trouble with changes.” He also says that the head of the company would very much like to enter into a dialogue with the employees to repair the relationship.

Governments have to intervene

Thursday’s protest march will go from the French to the German embassy in The Hague. The disgruntled employees hope to get the governments of both countries and that of the Netherlands to intervene.

Employees of EPO in Rijswijk speak of a ‘culture of fear’ within the company. People are only willing to speak out anonymously, for fear of reprisals. They are saying that people who like posts on Facebook that criticise the organisation, for example, can count on sanctions. ‘Censorship, threats. Working here is no fun anymore,” one of them says.

‘No culture of fear’

The EPO spokesperson denies the culture of fear. He says the company will not accept that people who have great working conditions speak poorly of the company they work at.

The Dutch cabinet has yet to make a clear statement on the issue. In response to questions from the House of Representatives, Minister Lodewijk Asscher (for Social Affairs and Employment, and member of the PvdA (Labour Party) previously underlined that part of the problem is that the board of management of the European Patent Office has legal immunity. That means, among other things, that the Dutch Inspectorate SZW cannot be granted access to the offices in Rijswijk as long as Battistelli does not allow it.

Cabinet must take action

The PvdA and SP (Socialist Party) in the Dutch House of Representatives want State Secretary Martijn van Dam (for Economic Affairs, and member of the PvdA) to take action. He is to mediate and meet with his European colleagues to make sure the ‘legal loophole is closed,’ according to MP Sharon Gesthuizen (of SP).

The European Patent Office is currently building a new office in Rijswijk costing €205 million. Prime Minister Rutte helped Battistelli lay the first stone in the summer of 2014. Protestors also marched in Rijswijk when the first post was driven into the ground.


What shocks us in many of these articles is that despite a track record of sheer lies (recent examples in [1, 2]), the media continues to print the words of EPO management without any fact-checking. To say that it's the fault of staff representatives that they got fired because they antagonised change is like saying that millions of Russians/Soviets lost their lives simply because they opposed the 'change' by a brutal new regime. It hardly qualifies as legitimate defense.

Later today we are going to rebut some lies from the EPO, whose expensive PR strategy is far too easy to bust given enough time.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Report About February Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in 2025) Comes Back From the Dead
Yesterday we wrote about an article in CRN (reporting Microsoft layoffs) being removed without any reasons specified
Links 21/02/2025: Myanmar Scam Centre and Disruptions at USPTO
Links for the day
gbhackers.com is Not Hackers, It's LLM Slop Outputs (Fake 'Articles') That Attack 'True Hackers'
A site called linuxsecurity.com keeps doing this and now we see the slopfarm gbhackers.com doing the same
linuxsecurity.com Continues to Spread Lies or Machine-Generated FUD (Microsoft LLMs Likely the Source) About OpenSSH and Linux
this LLM problem is global
 
Links 21/02/2025: TikTok Layoffs, WebOS Software Patents in Bad Hands
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/02/2025: Web Browsers, Mechanical Shortcuts, and Internet Hygiene
Links for the day
Richard Stallman 'Only' Founded the FSF
there's no reason to be upset at the FSF for keeping their founder in the Board
Techrights Disconnected From the United States Two Years Ago
Did people really need to wait for the US government to become this hostile towards the media before recognising the threat?
Before Trying Censorship by Extortion the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Literally Begged Us to Delete Pages
This is very clearly just a broad campaign of intimidation
Hype Watch: Weeks After Microsoft Disappointed Investors With "Hey Hi" It's Trying Some "Quantum" Hype (Adding Impractical Vapourware to Accompany This Hype and Even LLM Slop in 'News' Clothing)
Remember "metaverse"? What happened to media hype about "blockchain" and "IoT"?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 20, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 20, 2025
Gemini Links 20/02/2025: Law of Warming and Cooling, Health, and Devlog
Links for the day
Links 20/02/2025: Microsoft Infosys Layoffs and IRS Layoffs (Good News for Rich Tax Evaders)
Links for the day
IBM Layoffs in Europe Already Happening or Underway (UK and Spain). They Try Not to Call These "Layoffs".
"CIO" in particular was repeatedly mentioned lately, as was Consulting
People Who Came From Microsoft Demanding Removal of Articles About Them, About Microsoft, and About Microsoft GitHub is "Generous" (According to Them)
Imagine choosing a law firm that borrows money in the same year just to avoid overdraft in the bank!
Possibly a Third Round of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in 2025 ("Cloud Solution Architects, Customer Roles"), Report Removed or Censored
This is literally the top story for "microsoft layoffs" right now
Instead of 'DoS Protection' Cloudflare is Allegedly Conducting 'DoS Attacks' on Users of Browsers Other Than Firefox and GAFAM's DRM Sandboxes (Chrome, Safari and Others)
If you value the Web, you will avoid Cloudflare
Mixing Real With Fake in One 'Article' (by "Director of Content, Help Net Security")
From what we can gather, he got machines to generate some slop for him
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 19, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Gemini Links 19/02/2025: FreeDOS abd Botfloods
Links for the day
Microsoft Has "Made the Customer the Product."
it's very likely this comment was made by a Microsoft employee
GNU/Linux and Android Trump Microsoft in Saudi Arabia, Bing Down Since the LLM Hype/Hysteria Began
Microsoft leaves a lot of money on the table
The Interplay Between Free Software and Journalism Based on Truths, Suppressed Facts
Honest people can be transparent. Dishonest, rogue people rely on a lack of it.
FSF Talk: "Free Software Teaching Materials" by Dr. Miriam Bastian
Software Freedom is rooted in philosophy but it's about technical solutions
IBM's CEO Has Become a Stochastic Buzzword-Generating Machine
The current CEO is extremely unpopular
Chicago Transit Authority Has Dumped Twitter (X), As Did Many Others Without Announcing It (Due to Fear of Right-Wing Mobs)
If you don't have an account in Gab, then you probably should not have one in "X", either
How-To Geek Sort of Supersedes MakeUseOf (MUO) for GNU/Linux Coverage
some writers from MakeUseOf (MUO) have been migrated to a sister publication
New Year's Resolutions Scoreboard
The goal is to improve clarity, accessibility, speed, and accuracy
Sites Reporting Crimes and Getting Harassed for Reporting Crimes
you cannot just ignore those who constantly seek to harass
Links 19/02/2025: Science, Hardware, and Digital Restrictions (DRM) Striking Again at eBooks
Links for the day
Zizian, transgender, Google & Debian open source extremist cult phenomena
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 19/02/2025: The Forgotten USB Competitor and Pope's Bilateral Pneumonia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/02/2025: AuraRepo and Offpunk
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Wayne Williams is Making Up for His Workers' Slop Party, LinuxSecurity.com Still Publishes Fake Articles
We must identify and call out the culprits
“Open Source” Really Does Miss the Point, We Can Do Better Than That
We need to reject groups of people who promote Microsoft GitHub (proprietary) and call that "Open Source"
Red Hat's Bluewashing to be Further Completed This Year
Do not wait for some announcement from redhat.com - it's already covered by IBM
Links 19/02/2025: Organisations Quitting Social Control Media, Windows TCO Illustrated Some More
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation is More Financially Independent From Large Corporations Right Now
Money that comes with strings attached to it is always problematic
The Free Software Foundation's Position on IBM Taking Red Hat Enterprise Linux 'Private' is Articulated Almost 2 Years Late
The Free Software Foundation finally spoke out about this issue
Techrights Publication Topics
One thing we'd like to do more of is Software Freedom advocacy
Springtime Layoffs at IBM (2025) and Statement From IBM European Works Council
It's about cost-cutting, even if such cuts doom the company
Microsoft Paying People Who Harass and SLAPP Techrights, Demanding Censorship
At this point the money trail leads directly to Microsoft
It's Not Even Hidden Anymore: Microsoft is Passing Bribes for Media to Publish Puff Pieces About Itself
GeekWire is paid by Microsoft to publish many puff pieces (even outright lies) about Microsoft
Dr. Andy Farnell on a Death to Efficiency and Cash
Cash is not the same as "digital cash", which isn't even remotely the same
Links 19/02/2025: Political Roundup and Halifax Wants to Dump Twitter ("X")
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/02/2025: Beginning Meditation, Poison as Praxis, and Blogging
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 18, 2025