President Not-Cocaine Campinos Notified of Historic EPO Strikes (Thousands of Workers Not Coming Back to the Office)
It's 5PM in Munich (CET) and many workers say goodbye to the Office.
Formal communications were sent out to staff by the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) - communications about EPO strikes and the outcome of yesterday's vote. Presentation slides were circulated as well. The "Alicante Mafia" was notified yesterday in the following letter:
INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L'OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETSOrtssektion Den Haag
Local section The Hague
Section locale La Haye26 March 2026
su26009hp – 0.2.1/0.3.1Mr António Campinos
President of the European Patent Organisation– by email –
To: president@epo.org
Cc: socialdialogue@epo.orgOPEN LETTER
Formal notification of continued industrial actions
Dear Mr Campinos,
I am writing to formally inform you of the continuation of the industrial action adopted by the SUEPO The Hague Extraordinary General Meeting held on 26 March 2026. As approved, the industrial action will take place from 30 March 2026 until the end of June 2026 and will consist, inter alia, of a rolling strike, rendering every working day from 30 March to 30 June a strike day, as well as continuous work-to-rule action. The approved action plan calendar is attached.
It is expected that the registration system be made available to staff in The Hague without delay and without constraints for the entire duration of the industrial action. We remain, as always, open to negotiations and are prepared to bring the industrial action to an end as soon as our demands are met.
Best regards,
Fausto Ciotta
Chair of SUEPO The HagueAnnex: Approved Industrial Actions
The actions continue and the latest strike was the biggest one so far (in terms of the number of participants). The past 3 strikes combined had a cumulative participation of ~5,000 colleagues.
Please do pay attention to how the media treats these strikes in Europe's second-largest institution because this silence (or "media blackout") says so much about the state of today's media. One of Britain's largest newspapers was recently acquired by a German oligarch and The Register MS, which once upon a time covered EPO scandals (the editor told me why Kieren McCarthy had left), is in shambles. This imperils the Rule of Law in Europe and this issue isn't confined or limited to Europe. The public isn't being properly informed, politicians don't seem to care, and as a result there's no accountability. █