Bonum Certa Men Certa

Benoît Battistelli “Left in Anger During an Initial Meeting With the State Secretary [Who] Started Talking About Working Conditions for the Staff”

Can't handle the truth

President Battistelli



Summary: Dutch media coverage about the EPO continues to pile on pressure for change at the EPO, whose President is autocratic and unable to grasp his many abuses

THE EPO's management, led by a person infamous for his temper, is still as mean as it has been been for the past few years. Nothing changes. There are significant actions on their way, so things will have to be changed. We still sit on some stories that we intend to publish if or when publication won't compromise sources or jeopardise diplomatic processes (several are going on behind the scenes at the moment). “Personeel Europees Octrooibureau gaat staken; wantrouwen tussen top en werknemers loopt op,” published on the 4th of April, has "Translations [...] available in English, French and German," according to SUEPO. The supplied English translation [PDF] provides no new information, but we have decided to post it below, with important parts highlighted in yellow, for the sake of completeness.

European Patent Office staff plan to strike; distrust between management and employees mounts



RIJSWIJK - European Patent Office (EPO) staff will be holding a strike on Thursday. The reason for this is the mounting lack of trust between the employees and the management of the European organisation.

The employees at four branches of the EPO, including Rijswijk, will therefore not be working on 7 April. A proposal to strike was supported by a huge majority of the employees. At least 90 percent of those who took part in a vote on the walkout voted 'yes'.

There has been unrest at the EPO for years now. Hundreds of employees took part in a demonstration march through The Hague at the end of January. The immediate cause for this was the dismissal of two colleagues and downgrading of a third.

Criticism of the management

According to the employees, they are paying for the fact that they dared to express criticism of the 'tyrannical' EPO boss, Frenchman Benoît Battistelli.

The staff members demanded, among other things, that the measures should be suspended, but that did not happen. They are also against a change in the working conditions.

Biggest international organisation in the Netherlands

At the European Patent Office, a patent can be requested for various countries in Europe with just one application. The Rijswijk branch is the largest international organisation in the Netherlands with 2,700 employees.

After the demonstration in January, the cabinet also made it clear that there were concerns about the working conditions. According to State Secretary Martijn van Dam (PvdA - Dutch Labour Party, Economic Affairs) 'a dialogue was opened' between the management of the EPO and union members, at the insistence of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg) member states. 'The objective of this was to create better mutual understanding, as a prerequisite for an improvement supported by the management and staff,' he wrote in his answer to the parliamentary questions.

No results

But Van Dam also had to recognise that: 'This dialogue has been difficult and has not yet led to concrete results. Media reports about the poor relations also give cause for concern. So there is every reason to keep a close eye on the situation.'

NRC later reported that EPO boss Battistelli even left in anger during an initial meeting with the state secretary because Van Dam started talking about working conditions for the staff.


We invite people to send us any material which they have about the Board 28 meeting and Battistelli’s meeting with FFPE-EPO a few days ago. We still know too little about these. Secrecy prevails because of fear.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Demise in the Global News Cycle is Rather Telling
It should be noted that Microsoft is, in general, no longer prominent or dominant in news headlines
 
GNU/Linux Distributions as "Appliances" and DRM Platforms (the Case of ChromeOS and SteamOS)
Is this what we envisioned in the 1980s and 90s?
Gemini Migration and Backup Capsule (Archive)
At the end we'll end up with something a lot better than before and latency should be massively reduced
Links 01/10/2023: Science, Education, and pro-Russia Slovakia Leadership
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 01, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, October 01, 2023
Links 01/10/2023: Climate, Patents, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Apple and Microsoft Problems
half a dozen links
Malware in the Ubuntu Snap Store, Thanks to Canonical Bloatware Mindset
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Gemini Rising
There are 3523 capsules
Richard Stallman Gave a Talk Yesterday, Will Give Another Talk Today, and Will Give Two More Talks in Germany Later This Week
Those cover at least 2 different topics
Beware the Microsoft Sharks
We won't forgive and forget
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 30, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, September 30, 2023
Don't be Afraid of the Command Line, It Might Even be a Friend
There's a tendency to think that only graphical interfaces were made to simplify usage, and any declarative interface is by design raw, inherently unfit for usage
One Positive Note About GNU/Linux Coverage in 2023 (Less Microsoft)
GNU/Linux users do not want this, with very rare exceptions
Snaps Were Never Good at Security, But the Media Coverage is Just Appalling
The media should focus on culling Windows, not making a huge fuss over minor things wrongly attributed to "Linux"
Better Footage of Richard Stallman's Talk Last Week: “Freedom in computing, forty years after starting to really protect it”
Richard Stallman speaks about the cancer situation early in his speech
Links 30/09/2023: A Government Shutdown and More Blizzard Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2023: Bing Almost Offloaded Due to Failure/Losses, Nvidia Raided
Links for the day
A Lot of Technological 'Progress' Has Been Nothing But Buzzwords
Free software does not try to excite people people over nothing
Community is the Lifeblood of Freedom in the GNU/Linux World
Removing or undoing the "cancerd" (systemd) is feasible but increasingly difficult
Proprietary Software: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Proprietary software has an entirely different mindset, revolving around business models rather than science
Web Hostnames Down to Lowest Number in More Than 7 Years!
the number of hostnames is falling rapidly (they hide this by choosing logarithmic scale)
Over at Tux Machines...
2 days' worth
Richard Stallman Says He Will Probably Live Many More Years
"Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19."
Quitting 'Clown Computing' and GAFAM is Only the Start
The Web and the Net at large became far too centralised
Stop Begging Companies That Don't Value Your Freedom to Stop Pushing You Around
That's not freedom
They Say Free Software is Like Communism When They, the Proprietary Software Giants, Constantly Pursue Government Bailouts (Subsidies From Taxpayers)
At the moment Ukraine is at most risk due to its dependence on Microsoft (inside its infrastructure)
Social Control Media Has No Future, It Was Always Doomed to Fail (Also Promoted Based on Lies)
Recent events, including developments at Twitter, meant that they lost a lot of their audience and then, in turn, sponsors/advertisers
The forbidden topics
There are forbidden topics in the hacker community
They're Been Trying to 'Kill' Richard Stallman for Years (by Mentally Tormenting Him)
Malicious tongue wanted to do him what had been done to Julian Assange
We Temporarily Have Two Gemini Capsules
They're both authentic and secure, but they're not the same
Consumerism is Lying and Revisionism
We need to reject these liars and charlatans
Links 30/09/2023: Open VFS Framework, CrossOver 23.5, Dianne Feinstein Dies
Links for the day
Security Leftovers
GNU/Linux, Microsoft, and more
Microsoft Down on the World Wide Web, Shows Survey
down by a lot in this category
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 29, 2023
IRC logs for Friday, September 29, 2023
A Society That Fails Journalists Does Not Deserve Journalism
It's probably too later to save Julian Assange as a working publisher (he might never recover from the mental torture), but as a person and a father we can wish and work towards his release
Almost Nothing To Go With Your Morning's Cup Of Coffee
Newspaper? What newspaper?