Bonum Certa Men Certa

Church of EPO: How Team Battistelli Engineered the Dismissal of People Not Sufficiently Loyal to Them - Part II

So much managerial abuse that courts are simply overwhelmed

International Labour Organisation on EPO
Full report here



Summary: How the torrent of EPO complaints at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) basically clogs up the Tribunal and ensures that no EPO staff can expect justice, at least not for many years to come

WHEN the EPO's monarch in chief, Mr. Battistelli, sacks staff representatives (because he feels like it) he pretends they have an appeal process (juridical) to fall back on, even if the ILO takes many years to take on cases (people must seek alternative employment in the interim) and the outcome is often disappointingly biased.



In part one we looked at some of the mechanisms which Battistelli himself created to let him dismiss anyone using all sorts of vague criteria (like being perceived as disloyal or not sufficiently polite to every member of staff). Recent text that reached us explains why ILO is incapable of making up for Battistelli's out-of-control monarchy:

Will ILO-AT dismiss the EPO?

The current developments at the ILO-AT are another threat to the immunity of the EPO. The vast majority of the complaints brought by staff against its employer are lost. Maybe this should not come as a surprise, given that the Tribunal’s judges are paid on a case-by-case basis by the defendant organisation. It would seem that the ILO-AT and the EPO are a marriage made in heaven. Curiously, however, the Tribunal does not seem to be happy with the EPO. It recently issued a document in which the Tribunal blames the EPO for its increasing backlogs. It is clear that the EPO’s internal conflict resolution mechanisms have become ever more dysfunctional, see e.g. CA/21/15 which points 13-15 and 59-64 that show a vanishingly small success rate. However, in doing so the Tribunal passes in silence over changes in its jurisprudence that strongly contribute to its backlog like demanding that each staff member who is negatively affected by a general decision file his or her own individual complaint rather than accepting one complaint for all. A lack of consistency and a tendency to dismiss cases on procedural issues rather than to decide on the substance further create further legal uncertainty and contribute to an increase in the number of appeals. In a proposal to amend its Statutes, to be submitted to the ILO Governing Body in June, the Tribunal now plans to withdraw its acceptance for organisations when it finds that their internal conflict resolution mechanisms are insufficient. Not only that: it also plans to give itself the authority to expel existing “client” organisations that do not fulfil its conditions. It seems clear that the EPO is first in line. If so then the EPO would be the first organisation ever to be ejected from the Tribunal. This would be a major embarrassment. The Organisation would be obliged to provide an alternative fast, unless it wants to see its immunity lifted by national courts for which it would be very clear that staff in the EPO no longer have access to justice. Because access to the ILO-AT is fixed in the EPC (Article 13 EPC), such a change would require a diplomatic conference..


In short, the above suggests that there are financial strings between ILO and the EPO and there's no real commitment to justice, just the perception thereof. And it gets worse:

Summary injustice

The EPO made headlines by refusing to accept the ruling of a Dutch court of second instance and announcing – through a Vice-President – that it would even ignore the ruling of the Dutch Supreme Court, should that ruling not be in its favour. A similar disdain is shown by ILO-AT in its Judgment 3563, concerning an application for review of the earlier Judgment 3297 (dismissal on accusation of fraud). The Tribunal upheld the dismissal. After the earlier judgment the complainant was acquitted of the same accusations by a Dutch criminal court. He requested the ILO-AT (an administrative tribunal that limits itself to written procedures, without an investigation and without hearings) to reconsider its judgment in the light of the findings of the Dutch specialised (criminal) court that is much more thorough in its workings. The Tribunal considered that the findings of the Dutch court were irrelevant and refused reconsider its position. The application for review was summarily (sic) dismissed.


How is this justice and how can the Administrative Council hope for the perception of justice? The core issue is, the EPO's management gets people thrown out of the Office in an unjustifiable fashion, then pretends they can find justice at ILO -- something which they clearly cannot have (SUEPO lawyers recently made constructive suggestions to Guy Ryder, the Director General of ILO), increasingly so because of the high volume of complaints. The more abusive Team Battistelli becomes, the more over-encumbered ILO becomes and the less likely a disenfranchised member of staff is to find justice there. Some would not even bother anymore. Hopelessness and helplessness thus become a tool of domination and oppression. The atmosphere of fear has a paralyzing effect when there's no recourse to the principles of natural justice.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nat Friedman Had Left Microsoft GitHub Exactly One Week Before Matthew Garrett Sent His First SLAPP (Which Was an Empty Threat, He Was Abusing the Legal System of Another Continent to Terrorise Critics Who Had Just Unearthed Major Microsoft Scandals)
And it was likely talked about by his lawyers around the exact same time Nat Friedman was packing up
 
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025
Pushing Microsoft's Proprietary Trash/Trap as "Open" and "Linux" (Windows is 'Linux' Now?)
Maybe it's time to just stop saying "FOSS". The people who use that term are promoting Microsoft.
Slopwatch: Comparing Linux to Vermin, Attacking BSD With LLM Slop, and Helping Microsoft Demonise Linux/OpenBSD/SSH Over Weak User Passwords
Microsoft must be laughing its arse off, seeing how a bunch of Serial Sloppers (no skills, no comprehension, no integrity, no creativity) and slopfarms use Microsoft LLM to flood the Web with anti-Linux FUD
Links 05/06/2025: US Poised for Another $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Cops Want GAFAM Kill Switches
Links for the day
Links 05/06/2025: First US Spacewalk 60 Years Ago, GNU Octave 10.2.0 is Out
Links for the day
Scandinavia Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
The Danes have had enough of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in Bangladesh, According to statCounter
Windows isn't growing, it's going away
Gemini Links 05/06/2025: Loop Earplugs Review and ANS Forth
Links for the day
Armenian Adoption of GNU/Linux
Russian influence in Armenian must be worrying to Microsoft
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Slopwatch: Mindless Slop Pieces, Fake Images and Text, Linux FUD on the Cheap
spewed out by Microsoft-controlled LLMs
Links 04/06/2025: Workers' Strikes, Sudan Exodus
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day