The EPO's Attitude Towards Women and Media Silence on EPO Unrest
On breastfeeding and more: The History and the Policy of the EPO's Stance on Breastfeeding (Corporate Monopolies Versus Babies' Health) | EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition | International Women's Day: At the EPO, for Women to Become Managers They Need to Sleep With Well-connected Men and Mingle With Corrupt Men
A week ago the staff representatives at the EPO spoke about women's interests. About 50% of those representatives are female (the same cannot be said about EPO management; see the last link above).
The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) circulated the following message to staff, irrespective of gender (nourishing babies matters to fathers/male spouses too). To quote:
Update on support for nursing mothers
Dear colleagues,
Back in summer 2024, staff representation began advocating for the Office to address the lack of support for breastfeeding mothers in our regulations, including giving a presentation to staff in July of that year outlining a business case, and addressing the issue in many different forums with management.
We were pleased to share that a proposal has now been drafted and a meeting between staff representation and the administration took place on March 20. In response, staff representation held an online meeting for staff on March 23 to discuss the recent policy proposal of the administration for breastfeeding mothers, where these slides were presented. The presentation outlined the policy proposal from the administration, which notably includes 2 hours of paid breaks every full working day until the child turns 12 months old when a mother declares that she is breastfeeding or expressing milk. Further feedback has been provided to the administration, wherein the main outstanding point is the in-office requirement during the policy period.
A dedicated group of female staff have provided extensive and valuable feedback throughout this process. Even though many of them will not personally benefit from this improvement in support as their time of breastfeeding in the Office has now passed, their efforts will be felt by future colleagues, and we sincerely thank them for sharing their time and contributions.
These are the slides they have shared:
We don't have much to add to this. It should, however, be noted that EPO staff is on strike and the media doesn't bother mentioning that.
"Your EPO coverage is second to none," one reader told us this week. "Are there any links which can be included in posts [...] It would help *a lot* to link to primary sources, if the information is publicly available."
My response regarding the strikes was short and frank: "only us cover it; hence, no citations (ext.)" (external).
What Europe has for media or so-called "fourth estate" has been 'Orbanised' (not Urbanised) in recent years. There's media blackout about very critical matters. Many large publishers got scooped up by billionaires. They control the narrative with gross distortions of reality and fictitious scandals. █