Bonum Certa Men Certa

'Social Dialogue' at the EPO Broke Down, Team Campinos is Totally Delusional

Mirror mirror on the wall...

Mirror



Summary: Team Campinos is speaking to itself, reaffirming its own decisions, but it's trying to give the impression of consultation with staff; unfortunately for them, staff isn't gullible enough and there's good understanding of the false pretenses

The staff union of the EPO was crushed by Benoît Battistelli, but at least two of the people Battistelli aggressively ousted are now back in the union (SUEPO) and António Campinos shows that Battistelli's agenda remains in tact. Is there peace? 'Social dialogue' as Campinos likes to call it?



"As we noted last month, nobody was ever punished for what had been done to Laurent Prunier."Well, no.

To establish real peace and not a piece of PR more than smiles would be needed. It's reported that Campinos has temper tantrums, which show how detached he is from reality. Better shouting than screaming, right? Well, at least he was sober. Or so it seemed (remote working enables all sorts of things).

SUEPO Central 'met' Campinos a fortnight ago (a webchat) and then called it "Regress instead of progress" in a new publication, summarised as follows:

Mr Campinos showed again no interest in union rights and proposed a Memorandum of Understanding far below all expectations in International Organisations. Mr Campinos also vainly tried to minimise the flaws of his new salary adjustment procedure. The overall feeling of the participants is that Mr Campinos is only interested in ticking the checkbox that he met with SUEPO before the next meeting of the Administrative Council and to increase the KPI of his number of “social dialogue” meetings.


Here is the full publication (dated Tuesday):

01 December 2020 su20037cp – 0.2.1

Report on the SUEPO meeting with the President on 18 November 2020



Mr Campinos showed again no interest in union rights and proposed a Memorandum of Understanding far below all expectations in International Organisations. Mr Campinos also vainly tried to minimise the flaws of his new salary adjustment procedure. The overall feeling of the participants is that Mr Campinos is only interested in ticking the checkbox that he met with SUEPO before the next meeting of the Administrative Council and to increase the KPI of his number of “social dialogue” meetings.

Salary adjustment procedure – Broken promises

On litigation SUEPO has organized the filing of appeals by a group of test-appellants against the general decision CA/D 4/20 putting in place the EPO’s new salary adjustment procedure with a capping mechanism at Eurozone inflation + 0.2%. Mr Germond from Employment Law confirmed during the meeting that President would apply of the outcome of appeals to all staff as written in the reply letter1 of 22-09-2020. However, later in the meeting Mr Campinos emphasised that appeals are purely individual and it remained unclear whether he would apply the outcome of individual appeals on the salary adjustment procedure to all staff. This attitude confirms once again the lack of consistency and reliability of Mr Campinos. The appeals against the first implementing decision of the application of the salary adjustment procedure for the year 2020 will need to be filed early 2021. The statements of Mr Campinos confirm that SUEPO should always adopt a careful approach to secure the rights of all staff.

On the first results Earlier this year, SUEPO had warned Mr Campinos that the new procedure would result in a loss of purchasing power for all staff and pensioners. Nevertheless, Mr Campinos ignored our arguments and pushed his reform after being ill-advised by his close advisors and consultants2. By refusing to involve in the reform experts in salary adjustment procedures of International Organizations, Mr Campinos has now provoked an industrial accident which materializes immediately. Indeed, the results for 2020 are such that instead of adjustment of about 3.8% in July 2020, EPO staff and pensioners get 0.5% in January 2021 (in NL and DE) and 0.36% instead of 2.7% (in AT). This is equivalent to a pay cut of about one step. The savings are well beyond all expectations (see slides3 of the General Assembly in Munich) and the EPO scores again far below all standards in International Organizations (the adjustment will be +4.2% in the Coordinates Organisations).

_______ 1 “Legal action against the new Salary Adjustment Procedure” (re20034cl) by Mr Campinos (22-09-2020) 2 Directorate Compensation & Benefits under PD4.3 and Mercer 3 “The EPO salary adjustment procedure: Why it is not fit for purpose and how to fix it” (sc20021mp) by LSC Munich (19-11-2020)




In the meeting, we demonstrated that the results show that all the promises made in his Communiqué of 09-04-2020 are now broken: a reform “with the lowest intensity” and that there was “no desire to cut staff purchasing power or impose unnecessary savings”. This will deepen further the lack of trust in EPO management and destroy the engagement of staff in his Strategic Plan SP2023. Even worse, staff will now have to pay again for the mistakes of his services.

Mr Campinos replied: “Maybe we did something wrong, but at least we generate savings.” This statement already contradicted what Mr Campinos said in the meeting with the Central Staff Committee (CSC) a few hours before: “It is producing the results we wanted.”

We insisted that there are ways to repair the EPO salary adjustment procedure and referred to the CSC letter4 of 17-11-2020. This must be done as early as possible to avoid another disaster next year.

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – Regress instead of progress

SUEPO filed in 2014 a draft proposal5 for a Memorandum of Understanding. At the time, Mr Battistelli refused to even consider it as the starting point of a negotiation. Instead, Mr Battistelli tabled a counter-proposal6 which actually binds unions to respect all circulars that the President can change at will and in particular the illegal strike regulations currently in place. In our view, the text is actually endangering unions rather than recognising unions.

After the beginning of his mandate, Mr Campinos tried to revive the topic and promised in a meeting in October 2019 that he would table “within 3-4 weeks a new proposal based on the text applicable at the European Commission”. This statement gave hopes that dialogue with SUEPO would be given a fresh start. Unfortunately, Mr Campinos never sent the promised text. In the latest meetings, Mr Campinos said that the only text on the table was the one of Mr Battistelli and declared: “I have the duty to listen to you. Not to negotiate with you.” Mr Campinos goes one step backwards and this change of attitude shows regress rather than progress.

Appeals Committee opinions – Bad faith and self-contraction

The Appeals Committee provides the President of the Office with legal recommendations which are either unanimous or made by majority. We recalled that for our internal justice system to make sense and to reduce litigation, the President of the Office should follow all unanimous recommendations.

On SUEPO facilities Mr Campinos stated that he follows 95% of the unanimous recommendations. Interestingly, among the 5% remaining features a unanimous recommendation in favour of SUEPO concerning its facilities and access to Office premises. In the meeting, Mr Campinos argued that if he were to follow the recommendation the consequences would be too far reaching also for other appeals but did not bring any further details. Mr Campinos only expressed his willingness to “settle” the case, namely to give SUEPO less than what the appeals committee recommends

_______ 4 “Proposals for repairing the EPO new salary “adjustment” procedure” (sc20172cl) by the CSC (17-11-2020) 5 “Draft Proposal for a “Framework Agreement” (su14020cl) by SUEPO Central & “WG on recognition of trade unions” (su15182cl) by SUEPO Central (29-05-2015) 6 “What is wrong with the EPO Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)?” (su16063cp) by SUEPO Central (31-03- 2016)




and concluded: “In any case, if SUEPO wants back access to mass-emails, it would be only in the framework of a Memorandum of Understanding. SUEPO will lose in Geneva anyway.” Bad faith won’t help to convince us to sign an already flawed text.

On excessive strike deductions The discussion moved on to the topic of excessive strike deductions over weekends. Mr Campinos followed the recommendation but in a letter so far refused to generalise the outcome to all staff on the basis that only a small minority of staff was concerned (sic!). When attempting to defend his position, Mr Campinos replied that there should be no incentive to strike on Fridays and Mondays and that it was therefore good to deduct over weekends. Mr Campinos actually contradicted his own decision which was actually not to have deduction over weekends. This constitutes yet another example of regress rather than progress.

Disciplinary cases

In the meeting, we maintained our long standing claim for a solution concerning the two disciplinary cases of Appeals Committee nominees Aurélien Pétiaud and Michael Lund. Mr Campinos stated again that he refuses to re-open these cases on the basis that they are res judicata: “It is a matter of principle. I am a man of principle.”

We note that with the planned reform of the Education Allowance, Mr Campinos is actually re- opening the SUEPO supported cases lost by nationals on the topic (Judgment 2870). This shows that when there is a will, there is a way for Mr Campinos to re-open cases which have the force of res judicata.

Mr Campinos can now trumpet in front of the Administrative Council that he met with SUEPO. The quality of the meeting was however far below all expectations.

SUEPO Central



We intend to publish some more documents related to the crushing of staff and defunding based on a lie. Later this month we can hopefully be done with that.

“It is a matter of principle. I am a man of principle," Campinos is quoted is saying. What principles? The ones that motivate Donald Trump to sack everyone who says truths which embarrass him? Those are the "principles" of "revenge"...

Since the above letter mentions Aurélien Pétiaud and Michael Lund, let's recall an old Laurent Prunier letter [PDF], sent about a year before the settlement.

"SUEPO is concerned that the Office does not appear to have contacted Laurent Prunier to reach an amicable settlement," said the SUEPO Web site under "Letter to the President about the situation of Laurent Prunier" (emphasis below is ours).

Laurent Prunier letter

As we noted last month, nobody was ever punished for what had been done to Laurent Prunier. In fact, one of the bullies still works with Campinos. Not a manager but an unqualified bully, assured to ruin the very department entrusted to handle (crushing humans, draining resources).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Digital Sanitation Good Practices
leave behind Microsoftism
10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
English translation
Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
New/via libre-liberec.cz
 
The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
Links for the day
Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
Links for the day
Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
We appreciate the honesty
Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
expect the FSF to add more people
Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
Links for the day
Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
egregious plagiarism
Links 17/10/2025: Better Answers Sought After Air Crashes, "China Fans Patriotic Sentiment as Trade War With U.S. Heats Up"
Links for the day
Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
Links for the day
The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
Links for the day
Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
Very ethical company...
Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
Links 17/10/2025: Nestlé Crisis, Canada Post Versus 'Gig Economy' [sic] and Vista 11 Breaks Itself
Links for the day
Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
Some more 'wiring' work
What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
"In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
Links for the day
Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day