Trying to decapitate the unions of the European Patent Office (EPO) before he attacks the staff these unions represent

Reference: Reality Deficiency Syndrome

Summary: Minutes of the Administrative Council's meeting reveal some truly bizarre rants from Battistelli, who simply refuses to accept that the European Patent Office is burning (without a future direction, only burnout and brain drain) under his poor and abusive leadership

THE EPO is secretive to most people, but it's transparent to us because thousands of disgruntled employee keep us informed/abreast of whatever happens inside the EPO, in particular when the management is trying to hide things.

People who can you send us material often do (this can be done quite securely) and in 10 years we have never compromised a single source, not even accidentally.

"It's the crushing of the only major staff union, probably intended to leave the staff totally unprotected amid horrible impending changes."Our source, or the source of today's leak, needed to do "a bit of digging" as it wasn't so easy for one to come across, especially given the age of the material (we have a lot more from that time, though not enough time to prepare and publish). "It makes an interesting comparison with how the meeting was perceived at the time," the source told us. "Turns out that the BoA reform only just got through. Some great quotes from Battistelli as well about SUEPO."

In order to keep this punctual and compact, we have decided to just publish a summary of the June Administrative Council (AC) Minutes. We have split it into two themes -- "The Social Situation" and "Reform of the BoA". We shall deal with the social situation first. It should be duly stressed that these are very short summaries, not the complete thing.

Here it is:

FROM THE MINUTES OF THE AC JUNE 2016 MEETING

The President made an oral activities report, in which he mentioned that “sick leave rates were well down, to an average of 9.5 days per staff member. The number of staff suffering from psychological disorders had halved since 2011. Social dialogue had intensified”.

In response to this, the UK, Swedish, German, Polish, Netherlands and Italian delegations made comments such as “it was good to know that sick leave was falling, but that was the only crumb of comfort in a social climate that remained extremely worrying”, “the EPO social climate remained awful”, “in the long term, the work atmosphere could have very bad effects on quality and productivity”, and “the continued deterioration in the social situation remained an extremely serious matter”.

Replying to the various speakers, the President said that “EPO management was being subjected to a disgraceful campaign of defamation conducted by a handful of irresponsible union officials who, despite a dwindling following within the Office, managed their political connections in some member states effectively enough to give their outrageous attacks some plausibility in the eyes of the credulous and uninformed”.

Well, this is patently untrue. A lot of the criticisms of the EPO come from outside the Office and from ordinary people inside the office who are in no way affiliated with SUEPO (they are not even members of this union or any union). It is quite telling and it is ever more apparent that Battistelli tries to blame all of his own failings on "union officials" and is in complete denial (unless he maliciously lies) about the social climate inside the Office. It's like the Democratic [sic] party blaming everything on "Russia!" these days, even if/when there is no evidence to prove/support it. SUEPO has become a boogeyman.

The following meme (taking into account the old bicycle tale) seems apt. Is it just an EPO "reform"? No. It's the crushing of the only major staff union, probably intended to leave the staff totally unprotected amid horrible impending changes. Isolated, misinformed (by Battistelli's cronies) and helpless staff is what Battistelli wants. ⬆