How big does a petition need to be for the Administrative Council to defend the rule of law, for a change?

Summary: There's a considerable amount of pushback against António Campinos with his ludicrous policies; staff does not want him or his policies

THE staff union of the EPO, SUEPO, has just announced that the "[p]etition to the Council on an extraordinary salary adjustment ended with 2120 signatures" and it sent this letter [PDF]to the Chairperson and the Heads of Delegation of the Administrative Council. All SUEPO committees were involved and the petitions varied slightly depending on where staff was located.

"The SUEPO petition to the members of the Administrative Council on a request for an extraordinary adjustment of the salaries in July 2022 has ended with 2120 signatures," SUEPO wrote. "An open letter has been sent to the Chairperson and the Heads of Delegation of the Administrative Council, calling on them to proceed with an extraordinary adjustment of the salaries."

Here's the text of the letter:

22 June 2022 su22036cl – 0.3.1 – 4.2 – 5.3

To the Chairperson and to the Heads of Delegation of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation

Open Letter on P E T I T I O N

To the members of the Administrative Council of the EPO Request for an extraordinary adjustment of the salaries in July 2022

Dear Mr Chairperson, dear Heads of Delegation,

Inflation is at an all-time high in Europe. The trend stays worrying upwards, with no visible signs of a stabilization. In Europe, the macro-economic prognosis points to a long-term inflation and economic stagnation. Double digit inflation figures will become common.

The Coordinated Organisations (COs) proposed in June 2022 an interim adjustment for their staff of +7% retroactive to 1 March 2022. The European Union (EU) will apply also an interim adjustment of +2.4% retroactively to 1 January 2022.

EPO staff expects in these extraordinary economic circumstances that extraordinary measures are taken also by the EPO administration.

Therefore, we call on you to take the 2120 signatures collected with this petition as a request to proceed with an extraordinary adjustment of the salaries in July 2022.

The texts of the petitions can be found in the annexes.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Czogalla Acting Chairperson SUEPO Central

copy: President of the EPO, A. Campinos

Attachments: Petition texts

Will the Administrative Council actually listen? We shall find out next week. As it stands, only 1% of EPO staff trusts what the Administrative Council says. ⬆