Bonum Certa Men Certa

For EPO Staff on Dutch Territories Purachasing Power Fell 12% in Just One Year While EPO Increased Its Fees



Video download link | md5sum ee33fa5440e3ff966c0c83596b29e2ba Lowered Salaries at EPO Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Multinational corporations and billionaires may not mind this (they profit even more; price hikes all across the board!), but the EPO is making itself extremely unattractive to much-needed researchers and it's pricing itself out of the reach of SMEs (which the EPO itself has just admitted are no more than a fifth of all patent applications)

THE number of patents granted by the EPO has plunged thanks to industrial actions, which culminated in a strike last month. The EPO is back with António Campinos where it was with Benoît Battistelli just half a decade earlier; the Office is just faking "health" by granting loads of fake patents, including a lot of European software patents.



"...for workers stationed in The Netherlands the living expenses are soaring while the EPO suspends the standard salary increase (keeping up with national inflation rates)."The document discussed above concerns the vastly lowered incentive to join the EPO; not only is there no work security anymore (5-year contracts); for workers stationed in The Netherlands the living expenses are soaring while the EPO suspends the standard salary increase (keeping up with national inflation rates).

In the words of the union:

08 April 2022 su22011hp – 0.2.1

Inflation at 11.9%



Extraordinary times request extraordinary measures – Request for intermediate salary adjustments.



Europe inflation

Inflation is at an all-time high since the euro was launched in 1997. It is not a mere indicator anymore; it is here to hurt. The inflation index published by Eurostat for March 2022 is 7.5% for the eurozone and 11.9% for The Netherlands when compared with prices a year before on March 2021. And still growing. The trend stays worrying upwards, with no visible signs of a stabilisation, let alone a downward trend. In fact, the problem of inflation is that once established in the economy it hardly finds a downward trend. We all maybe remember efforts of European economies in the late 80s to reduce inflation levels, during a period of both long-term inflation and economic stagnation, called stagflation.

Double digit inflation figures seemed to belong to a remote past. This is no longer true. If salaries remain nominally the same while losing purchasing power, employee salaries will melt like ice in the sun. In a short period of time, salaries and pensions will be reduced to a shadow of what they are today.

EPO's management looks at this economic disaster as an opportunity to award its staff no inflation adjustment at all, using a sophisticated intellectually dishonest structured scheme which purpose is to never grant any nominal salary adjustment. Therefore, permanently eroding all career and pension prospects. EPO’s management reminds us of bankers, advertising for complex structured financial products that promise a "potential" return on investment to customers. However, the vast array of mala fide exception clauses in those investments always and hopelessly produced 0% returns at the product maturity. Sounds familiar? It is not a coincidence, knowing that our salary adjustment procedure was produced by such bankers, in order to achieve a 0% by design.

SUEPO expects in these extraordinary times, extraordinary leaders able to amend their decisions for the best of the EPO and their most valuable asset, staff.

SUEPO requests a sustainable workforce management by intermediate salary adjustments as done at the Coordinated Organisations and the EU.

Your SUEPO The Hague Committee

They are the butlers of a whole universe Lords by force lawless dispatchers They fill their pockets, drink new wine And dance around at the king's pine forest

Zeca Afonso - “Os Vampiros” (The Vampires)


The way things are going, the Office will quickly run out of people capable of doing the job it was entrusted to do. It's a disaster in the making and those who make the mess are profiting some other way.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
 
Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago