George Bush-like attacks on unions has merely united these unions, making them even stronger and more widely supported by staff

"You don`t know what you can get away with until you try."

--Colin Powell

Summary: An obscure union from the Dutch side of things at the EPO is expressing support for the suspended colleagues from SUEPO (more German than Dutch)

THE EPO's representatives aren't only SUEPO. Concerns are being expressed by other groups too, as we shall show in days to come. As comments in IP Kat serve to show, not everyone trusts FFPE (see official public site) and some comments about it are too offensive for us to gently quote here. Having said that, what appears to be an official Blogspot account of FFPE has just posted the following statement:

Dear colleagues, readers,

The FFPE-EPO is a union under the Dutch law (just like SUEPO) and has received in the past and now the same privileges as SUEPO, which means currently no facilities at all.

Due to our limited size (although larger than the numbers circulating on this blog) it has been difficult to generate significant attention. While the elected staff committee members of the EPO have almost always been SUEPO committee members, we have not had a representative talking with management. This not only means that we received information always late (if at all), it makes also clear that we are not responsible for the current mess. We hereby note that we are not sure in how far SUEPO could have prevented the current problems.

It is true that management is negotiating with the FFPE-EPO on the terms of union-recognition, the SUEPO stepped out of this process. The FFPE (European trade union, to which the FFPE-EPO is connected) is helping out on important issues. The main item that is still debated and probably the only one that could still make it impossible to sign an agreement are the current strike regulations as they are in circular 347. FFPE Central Bureau and the committee, see these regulations as incorrect, authoritarian and not fulfilling the standards of a normal agreement between unions and management. There are various possible solutions to the problem and all of them have been discussed but none of them seems for the time being particularly appealing to the EPO.

The FFPE-EPO stands for dialogue instead of confrontation.

Obviously the FFPE-EPO supports the suspended colleagues. Any disciplinary measure should be proportional, which appears not to be the case in the present situation.

The FFPE-committee

Irrespective of one's opinion of FFPE (one might view it as 'competition' to SUEPO), we think everyone can commend FFPE for the latter parts of the statement, which also reveal solidarity not with EPO management but with those whom it is witch-hunting. The managers from the EPO have successfully united several unions, binding them closer together by showing their true faces. ⬆