Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Over Parents at the EPO

Video download link



Summary: Europe's second-largest institution does not treat parents fairly; this jeopardises the standards of labour rights across Europe's as a whole

LAST night we posted some information about how parents -- especially young parents -- are being treated by Europe's largest patent office (certainly no parent office). EPO autocrats like Benoît Battistelli (with his grown-up daughters) and his "Orange Man" think alike; EPO workers are just "spoiled"... after all, they do all the work. How dare they demand that their human rights be respected?



"The EPO's management is in fact not seeing much of a future, judging by the plans to lay off staff and the squeezing of the goose for its golden egg."Further to last night's post we've produced the video above, which explains why today's EPO cannot attract talent and won't manage to attract any (in the foreseeable future). The EPO's management is in fact not seeing much of a future, judging by the plans to lay off staff and the squeezing of the goose for its golden egg.

Today's EPO is self-destructive and it mostly serves monopolists that aren't even European (they're usually not law-abiding, either, but they have a grip on governments and patent offices). Here's the document shown above, as text:

Staff Committee The Hague Comité du personnel de La Haye Personalausschuss Den Haag

10 February 2021

Childcare during the pandemic



Shared effort: request special leave for childcare and home-schooling

Dear Colleagues,

Your Staff Representation has been made aware that an overwhelming number of colleagues struggled to cope with trying to balance work and home schooling or caring for young children during the lockdowns caused by the pandemic.

These difficulties have been acknowledged by the President who announced the crediting of 10 extra parental leave days to all eligible parents1 at the beginning of 2021.

Extra parental leave alone is however not sufficient as it creates a financial gap which can prove unaffordable. For a number of staff, the only solution presently available is to take annual leave to care for their offspring, thus depleting their annual leave credit, or work when their caring responsibilities are over, both of the above leading to physical and mental exhaustion2.

Your Staff Representation hereby advises colleagues who need to combine their EPO duties with childcaring responsibilities during the pandemic to request special leave with a corresponding target adjustment for example according to the following pattern, which seems to be a common practice3, embraces the principle of duty of care and shows a genuine “shared effort” between the employee and the employer: in the absence of schooling and day care facilities due to lockdown, quarantine or stricter rules relating to keeping children away from said establishments, a staff member taking half day of annual, parental or unpaid leave requests half day of special leave to make up a whole day dedicated to childcare or home-schooling.

Childcare centres and some schools have reopened but a third wave and lockdown are looming on the horizon. If they materialize, if your child(ren) is/are sent home because they or another pupil in the group have symptoms, or if they need to quarantine, please request leave according to the above distribution.

______ 1 N.B: For the sake of consistency with the Codex, any supplementary parental leave should be given per child rather than per parent – this is to avoid that families where both parents work at the EPO receive double the amount compared to families where only one parent is an Office employee. 2 Research shows the increased risk of parental burnout and pandemic fatigue: Parental Burnout and Child Maltreatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic, A, K, Griffith, J. Fam. Violence, 2020. 3 See for example KPN giving 4 hours leave for every 4 hours taken by its employees for childcare: “Betaald verlof en docent aan huis: zo helpt de baas zijn werknemers”, RTL, NL. For other examples of common practice in the matter, see “Zusätzliche Kinderkrankentage für Eltern”, Bundesregierung, DE and “Can I be furloughed to look after my children?”, BBC, UK.




The reasons listed for requesting special leave in MyFips -> Teleworking, time and leave -> Special leave do not include “force majeure” or “childcare during the pandemic”4, which is why we advise sending the template below to HR and your manager to request that the corresponding special leave days be credited to your leave account and your yearly target adjusted.

Take care of yourselves and your loved ones,

Your Staff Representation

______ 4 It should be noted that the list of reasons for granting special leave in Article 59 and circular 22, rule 6 of the Codex is not exhaustive.

[...]



If anybody at the EPO has something to tell us and requires anonymity, stay tuned as we might implement document-dropping (or tip-dropping) software over Gemini protocol. It's a little project.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025