Not that he's likely to accept these offers (of concessions)...

The CSC extends an olive branch to Monsieur Battistelli

Summary: Amid strike preparations and a very difficult Administrative Council meeting (starting tomorrow) the EPO's President is given a chance to acknowledge his errors and act to correct them

SEVERAL days ago the Chairman of the Administrative Council was contacted in an effort to de-escalate things by undoing Monsieur Battistelli's union-busting actions. Here's the latest Communiqué from the Central Staff Committee (CSC) of the EPO. It suggests that they really are after a peaceful resolution, wherein staff representatives (SRs) get their jobs back and get re-integrated into the workforce.

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité central du Personnel

15.03.2016 sc16043cp – 0.2.1/0.3.2

Dear colleagues,

The Central Staff Committee has accepted the invitation to see the President in the afternoon of 15 March 2016 in Munich to discuss the last call for strike (link). This is the afternoon before the meeting of the Council. A previous meeting on 24 February 2016 with Ms Bergot on the same matter did not lead to any progress (link).

As your interlocutor in the recent call for strike (91% of staff voted in favour), we will ask the President concrete questions, including the ones below and will come back to you with his replies as quickly as possible.

• Will you lift the disciplinary sanctions against Elizabeth Hardon, Ion Brumme and Malika Weaver?



• Will you lift the disciplinary sanctions against the former members of the Internal Appeals Committee?



• Will you stop the disciplinary threats, investigations and retaliations against further Staff Representatives?



• Will you be ready to revise the Investigation Guidelines together with the Staff Representation based on a mandate that is agreed upon by both parties?



• Will you be ready to re-establish an appropriate IAC system?



• Will you be ready to adapt the strike regulations according to the judgment of the Dutch Court?



• Will you be ready to revise the health, sick-leave and invalidity regulations together with the Staff Representation based on a mandate that is agreed upon by both parties?



• Which further concessions are you willing to make?

Your Central Staff Committee

All the above bullet-points seem perfectly reasonable considering the bizarre nature of the allegations and Battistelli's failure to carry out the judgments as they were handed over from the Disciplinary Committees -- something which Board 28 became distraught over (it called for a suspension of these dismissals and an external re-evaluation of them). ⬆