Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Non-dialogue: EPO “Staff Representatives Retire or Resign Before Expiration of Their Term of Office Because of Their Fatigue and Disillusionment.”

Part 3 of 3 (see part 1 and part 2)

EPO fatigue
Staff Representation on "urgently needed “Quick Fixes” for social dialogue"



Summary: Central Staff Committee representatives write to EPO President António Campinos about an "Urgent Call for 'Quick Fixes'" (noting that the war on staff representatives persists)

BACK in June (of last year), the Central Staff Committee wrote to Campinos the following letter, saying that "the social dialogue should be improved."



Rock fishing on the cliff with big wavesWe kindly remind our readers who are not EPO insiders that this was months after a supposedly 'nice' or 'better' person had been given the top role, promising that he would magically resolve issues by talking to -- and also listening to -- EPO staff. As the letter makes rather evident, those were empty promises and patience was running thin. Here's the letter to Mr. "non-dialogue" (who later said that he just needed to listen -- for pretence of "dialogue" -- but not actually change his decisions based on anything he was told, or facts that he was presented with).

Reference: sc19085cl-0.3.1/1.3.1 Date: 19.06.2019

Mr António Campinos President of the EPO

ISAR - R.1081

Urgent Call for “Quick Fixes”

Dear Mr President,

In the upcoming Administrative Council meeting Staff Representatives still hope to report that social dialogue at the EPO is improving. Unfortunately, we currently observe that the pace of progress in the Working Groups “Resources and Communication” and “Adjustment to the performance management system and procedure for incompetence” has been alarmingly slow.

In the “Resources” Working Group, for example, discussions led to the conclusion that a number of “quick fixes” should come into force on 1 July 2019. However, as no meeting of the Working Group is foreseen before that date, it seems highly unlikely that this will actually happen. Without an explanation as to why this commitment is not being honoured, Staff Representatives see nothing more than delaying tactics on the part of the Administration. Such tactics make it impossible for us to act in the best interests of Office and staff members. The longer the “Resources” situation remains unchanged, the more serious the impact. Our contingent is shrinking in numbers as Staff Representatives retire or resign before expiration of their term of office because of their fatigue and disillusionment. This, in its turn, is increasing the exhaustion of the Staff Representatives that remain.




As the aim of our committees is to improve relations between staff and management by functioning at full capacity, we therefore urge you to immediately implement1 our proposed “quick fixes”, in particular with regard to both an increase in time budget and the introduction of flexibility in how we distribute this time budget. We also urge you to encourage your services to “pick up the pace” in both Working Groups, as we remain optimistic that by working together we can achieve significant progress in many areas.

Yours faithfully,

Joachim Michels Chairman of the Central Staff Committee

Annex: “Circular 356 - Quick Fixes”, emailed to WG Resources on 29 May 2019

____ 1 According to Article 14(3) of the currently applicable Circular 356, “The President may take any further measures necessary to ensure a smooth transition to the new system”. The President would therefore comply with this Article by now implementing the time budget provisions provided in the amended version of Circular 356 (sent to the “Resources” Working Group on 29 May 2019, attached), pending proper GCC consultation of the amended Circular.


There's the Annex below (no PDF because of metadata):

EPO quick fixes 1

EPO quick fixes 2

EPO quick fixes 3

EPO quick fixes 4

EPO quick fixes 5

EPO quick fixes 6

EPO quick fixes 7

Here's the message which was addressed to EPO staff at the time:

Letter to the President on urgently needed “Quick Fixes” for social dialogue

Dear colleagues,

Following the discussions with the President on 3 June the social dialogue should be improved. The present letter requests to lift limits hindering the Staff Representation to function at its full capacity in the interest of staff and the Office. We furthermore urge the President to encourage to “pick up the required pace” of progress in the Working Groups “Resources and Communication” and “Adjustment to the performance management system and procedure for incompetence”, as we remain optimistic that by working together we can achieve significant progress.

[...]

We keep you posted on the developments.

Your Central Staff Committee


We now have this 3-part series which demonstrates how quickly the so-called 'social dialogue' broke down and whose fault it was.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hiring for Tech Roles Based on Perceived Loyalty is No Better Than Hiring to Meet Diversity Quotas
What we're seeing right now is a national security disaster and it is almost purely about technology
S.E.O. SPAM by Serial Sloppers With L.L.M. Garbage is Hurting Linux
We continue to run Slopwatch
IBM Says That Half of Its "Assets" is Basically Pure Fiction ("Goodwill")
It times get tough, IBM can sell "Goodwill" at the local pawn shop and pay back the lenders, right?
 
Links 02/02/2025: Union-Busting and Censorship by Executions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/02/2025: Limits Pushing, Free Software Absolutism, and Why Gemini Matters
Links for the day
Slopwatch: BetaNews and linuxsecurity.com Have Just Published More Fake 'Articles' About "Linux"
There's probably more "Linux" slop out there, but we do our best to identify it on a daily basis
Richard Stallman Has Another Talk in India Tomorrow, at Least Fourth India Talks in Recent Days
In the past month he has given at least half a dozen talks
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 01, 2025
Links 01/02/2025: Chinese and American Censorship, Cloud-[sic]Native Targeted by Software Patents
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Belated Happy New Year 2025 and Gabbro 0.1.2
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Administrative Chaos and Aviation Disasters Persist
Links for the day
Arrested: Albanian Outreachy whistleblowers, Sonny Piers GNOME & Debian connections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 1/2/2025: LLM Hype Revisited, Linuxwashing by Oumi
Links for the day
Growing Evidence That the Patent Industry Has Become a Major Scam
Seeing that the patent "industry" has turned to serious crimes (sometimes to cover up corruption) and seeing that the net negative is clearer for all to see, people who argue for abolition of all patents will have a field day
Planet Ubuntu Overrun by LLM Slop? Faizul "Piju" 9M2PJU Seems to be Publishing Fake Articles About "Linux"...
Maybe it is "assisted" by LLM slop, but slop is slop and it introduces many problems
Gemini Links 01/02/2025: LLMs, Analog Computer, and BorgBackup
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 31, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, January 31, 2025
Links 31/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft, Sweden Again Fails to Protect Critics of Violence
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux" and More (Latest Roundup Featuring BetaNews, Janus Atienza, and Brittany Day From Guardian Digital, Inc)
LLM slop season
Microsoft Staff Explains How Microsoft Swindled Employees and Avoided Paying Out Severance Pay (Microsoft Hasn't Much Money Left in the Bank)
This is a classic way to avoid paying workers
"Not one of us" by Dr. Andy Farnell
Elon Musk has brought embarrassment to nerds and technologists
Gemini Links 31/01/2025: "Bulletin Buble" and "Why Blog?"
Links for the day
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Pay Off: Vastly Faster Sites, Much Smaller Hosting Bills
success story for SSGs
Of Note: Linux Foundation Has Already Let Linux.com Rot for About 4 Months (No Activity)
there's no campaign aside from marketing spam there
Techrights Should be Even Faster Now
We're now better off
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 30, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, January 30, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Gave 3 Talks in India in Less Than a Week
In India this month we've not seen a single negative comment about RMS
Indian Data Biases statCounter For or Against "Linux"
In statCounter, the GNU/Linux increases and decreases are deeply tied to what it does with data collected in India
The Corporate Media Pretends That Facebook ("Meta") Has Performed Well, But Its Debt Doubles Every 2 Years Despite Mass Layoffs
That same media also helps parrot misleading financial claims
Microsoft's Debt Surged by More Than 6,000,000,000 Dollars in Just 3 Months
numbers released hours ago
The Sheer Irony of Microsoft Proxy Accusing Others of 'Stealing'
Wherever DeepSick's data came from, Microsoft (or its proxy) is in no position to issue criticism.
The Difference a Decade (and GAFAM Money) Makes
Credibility cannot be purchased
[Meme] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Critics Because Its Message is Effective
Applying to others the same standards one is willing to violate?