Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Non-dialogue: EPO “Staff Representatives Retire or Resign Before Expiration of Their Term of Office Because of Their Fatigue and Disillusionment.”

Part 3 of 3 (see part 1 and part 2)

EPO fatigue
Staff Representation on "urgently needed “Quick Fixes” for social dialogue"



Summary: Central Staff Committee representatives write to EPO President António Campinos about an "Urgent Call for 'Quick Fixes'" (noting that the war on staff representatives persists)

BACK in June (of last year), the Central Staff Committee wrote to Campinos the following letter, saying that "the social dialogue should be improved."



Rock fishing on the cliff with big wavesWe kindly remind our readers who are not EPO insiders that this was months after a supposedly 'nice' or 'better' person had been given the top role, promising that he would magically resolve issues by talking to -- and also listening to -- EPO staff. As the letter makes rather evident, those were empty promises and patience was running thin. Here's the letter to Mr. "non-dialogue" (who later said that he just needed to listen -- for pretence of "dialogue" -- but not actually change his decisions based on anything he was told, or facts that he was presented with).

Reference: sc19085cl-0.3.1/1.3.1 Date: 19.06.2019

Mr António Campinos President of the EPO

ISAR - R.1081

Urgent Call for “Quick Fixes”

Dear Mr President,

In the upcoming Administrative Council meeting Staff Representatives still hope to report that social dialogue at the EPO is improving. Unfortunately, we currently observe that the pace of progress in the Working Groups “Resources and Communication” and “Adjustment to the performance management system and procedure for incompetence” has been alarmingly slow.

In the “Resources” Working Group, for example, discussions led to the conclusion that a number of “quick fixes” should come into force on 1 July 2019. However, as no meeting of the Working Group is foreseen before that date, it seems highly unlikely that this will actually happen. Without an explanation as to why this commitment is not being honoured, Staff Representatives see nothing more than delaying tactics on the part of the Administration. Such tactics make it impossible for us to act in the best interests of Office and staff members. The longer the “Resources” situation remains unchanged, the more serious the impact. Our contingent is shrinking in numbers as Staff Representatives retire or resign before expiration of their term of office because of their fatigue and disillusionment. This, in its turn, is increasing the exhaustion of the Staff Representatives that remain.




As the aim of our committees is to improve relations between staff and management by functioning at full capacity, we therefore urge you to immediately implement1 our proposed “quick fixes”, in particular with regard to both an increase in time budget and the introduction of flexibility in how we distribute this time budget. We also urge you to encourage your services to “pick up the pace” in both Working Groups, as we remain optimistic that by working together we can achieve significant progress in many areas.

Yours faithfully,

Joachim Michels Chairman of the Central Staff Committee

Annex: “Circular 356 - Quick Fixes”, emailed to WG Resources on 29 May 2019

____ 1 According to Article 14(3) of the currently applicable Circular 356, “The President may take any further measures necessary to ensure a smooth transition to the new system”. The President would therefore comply with this Article by now implementing the time budget provisions provided in the amended version of Circular 356 (sent to the “Resources” Working Group on 29 May 2019, attached), pending proper GCC consultation of the amended Circular.


There's the Annex below (no PDF because of metadata):

EPO quick fixes 1

EPO quick fixes 2

EPO quick fixes 3

EPO quick fixes 4

EPO quick fixes 5

EPO quick fixes 6

EPO quick fixes 7

Here's the message which was addressed to EPO staff at the time:

Letter to the President on urgently needed “Quick Fixes” for social dialogue

Dear colleagues,

Following the discussions with the President on 3 June the social dialogue should be improved. The present letter requests to lift limits hindering the Staff Representation to function at its full capacity in the interest of staff and the Office. We furthermore urge the President to encourage to “pick up the required pace” of progress in the Working Groups “Resources and Communication” and “Adjustment to the performance management system and procedure for incompetence”, as we remain optimistic that by working together we can achieve significant progress.

[...]

We keep you posted on the developments.

Your Central Staff Committee


We now have this 3-part series which demonstrates how quickly the so-called 'social dialogue' broke down and whose fault it was.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October