Bonum Certa Men Certa

No More Rights for EPO Staff?

epostaff4rights site suspended



Summary: The oppression and the crackdown on labour rights in Europe's second-largest institution has deepened to the point where staff is paid as little as is legally possible

STAFF of the European Patent Office (EPO) is oppressed and mistreated in a lot of ways. For many years a lot of people used salaries as justification for that kind of abuse. As if being compensated financially makes it acceptable to leave one susceptible to abuse.



Under António Campinos, as we noted yesterday, some EPO workers now receive minimum wage and not even a full time job. We now have some screenshots to share (to that effect):

EPO job



More details:

EPO job details



The images and text can be found on the official EPO Facebook account. It's not a secret.

"As if being compensated financially makes it acceptable to leave one susceptible to abuse."Even Battistelli didn't go that far (as far as we're aware); bear in mind Campinos went as far as sending EU jobs to India. The race to the bottom (of salaries) is on. Never mind quality of patents, which now include software patents in defiance of the law (even the US rejects such patents, citing 35 U.S.C. €§ 101).

"The EPO flyer team (epostaff4rights)," told us a source, has meanwhile "disappeared" (blog taken down). See the screenshot at the top. It says "the account has been suspended". Maybe they didn't pay the hosting bill? Maybe bandwidth limits exceeded? We don't know. Maybe we'll know soon.

Speaking of the EPO's Facebook account (sending job ads to a highly controversial company from another continent), only hours ago the EPO tweeted (US site): "If you want to hear about the latest open tenders with us, follow us on LinkedIn..."

"What in the EPO is actually European?"So the EPO has outsourced procurement to Microsoft. The EPO is so 'European' that all of its communications and ads go to American companies (Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft)...

How very typical.

What in the EPO is actually European? Certainly not the translations (Google).

Maybe some day in the near future Campinos will send EPO jobs to India in the same way he did so at EUIPO. Dutch minimum wage would be more appreciated in poor countries, but what benefit does that bring to Europe and its economy? Also, can the data be safely stored there? And quality of services maintained?

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