Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Workers Go on Strike Next Week

By extension, those thousands of patent examiners work to protect workers' rights across Europe (and worldwide)

SUEPO€´s “Call for Strike”
"Open letter to the President dated December 07, 2020"



Summary: There's an EPO strike next week; staff says "Enough is Enough"

"SUEPO€´s “Call for Strike” of 8 November 2019," it said yesterday, "resulted in a strike ballot organised by the Office on 28 November 2019. The ballot was organised without any Strike Conciliation meeting ahead to discuss and try to overcome the underlying grounds for strike. The outcome is a clear message passed by staff to management: 83% of the participants support the call for strike."



The date is in the letter. December 15th (next Tuesday).

We have been noting several times lately that talks broke down. There's nobody to talk to at the Office. António Campinos is no better than Benoît Battistelli, except the perception of attitude (although Campinos has temper tantrums as well).

Here's the letter dated Monday:

7 December 2020 su20039cl – 0.3.1

OPEN LETTER

Mr António Campinos President of the EPO ISAR– Room 1081

Notification of a strike “Enough is Enough”

Dear Mr Campinos,

SUEPO ́s “Call for Strike” of 8 November 2019 (su19043cl) resulted in a strike ballot organised by the Office on 28 November 2019. The ballot was organised without any Strike Conciliation meeting ahead to discuss and try to overcome the underlying grounds for strike. The outcome is a clear message passed by staff to management: 83% of the participants support the call for strike.

Grounds for having to resort to the strike

The call for strike of 8 November 2019 pinpointed that none of the root causes of the many issues that trouble our organisation have been addressed satisfactorily and that genuine social dialogue is simply non-existing. There are many reasons for discontent. Therefore, the following claims were put forward:

1. Fair settlement for all SUEPO Officials/Staff representatives abusively sanctioned by the Battistelli administration; 2. Review by independent experts of the financial situation of the Office; no unnecessary measures based on the heavily biased Financial Study (also criticised by the EPO Pensioners Association), its ensuing phase II (CA/83/19) and management's comments (CA/84/19); 3. Using the “seventeen measures for staff and the EPO” published by SUEPO on 2 October 2019 (su19040cp) as guidance to solve the issues listed above and below; 4. Fair career progression for everyone, no managerial arbitrariness; 5. Respect for staff; decrease of work pressure and production demands; 6. Fair reporting, no artificial underrating of colleagues and threats of incompetence procedures; 7. People-oriented management, instead of management by fear.




As the Financial Measures and the underlying Financial Study were then still under discussion SUEPO refrained from calling immediate actions. However, SUEPO closely monitored and monitors the developments and will decide on any next steps with respect to industrial actions.

Towards March this year little to no progress for the above claims could be noted. In contrary in the discussions on the Financial Measures and the linked Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP) it became more and more clear that the Office wants to cut Salaries and Pensions no matter of whatever economic development underlying the Financial Study would materialise. SUEPO prepared than an “Action Plan” (su20009cp), however, decided to postpone the plan due to the special circumstances with respect to the then upcoming corona pandemic.

On the positive side we noted in April this year the settlement of a former SUEPO official and Staff Representative, Mr Laurent Prunier, who had been abusively dismissed by the former Battistelli administration (su20021cp). However, this leaves still to settle the two disciplinary cases of former Staff ́s Appointees to the Appeals Committee of Aurélien Pétiaud and Michael Lund.

A next meeting President/SUEPO on 26 June 2020 (su20040cp), scheduled as late as 1 working day ahead of the June Council created a strong perception of an Alibi meeting to be able to inform the Council the social dialogue is working. On the main issue of the Financial Bundle and the linked Erosion of Salaries and Pensions the E&Y Analysis of the Financial Study was not considered and the claims of thousands of staff members for a fair review of the financial situation with the Call for Strike in November and the petition of early June on “to enter into genuine social dialogue on the salary adjustment procedure” (su20029) were bluntly disregarded.

The implementation of the new SAP provoked an industrial accident which materializes immediately. Indeed, the results for 2020 are such that instead of adjustment of about 3.8% in July 2020, EPO staff and pensioners get 0.5% in January 2021 (in NL and DE) and 0.36% instead of 2.7% (in AT). This is equivalent to a pay cut of about one step. The savings are well beyond all expectations and the EPO scores again far below all standards in International Organizations (the adjustment will be +4.2% in the Coordinates Organisations).

In the last meeting President/SUEPO of 18 November 2020 (su20037cp) again no progress could be observed. The SAP is kept as is and further proposals to alleviate this salary and pension erosion by the Staff Representation are not considered. The results demonstrate that all the promises made in the presidential Communiqué of 09-04-2020 are now broken: a reform “with the lowest intensity” and that there was “no desire to cut staff purchasing power or impose unnecessary savings”. This will deepen further the lack of trust in EPO management and destroy the engagement of staff in his Strategic Plan SP2023.

Also on all other claims little to no tangible progress can be reported. EPO staff remains treated second class compared with other International or EU organisations in particular with the career and the salary adjustment. Even in litigation: appeals with a unanimous opinion in favour of SUEPO or staff are not straight forward implemented or applied to all staff which one would consider being a fair implementation.

Therefore, SUEPO decided to return to actions to underline the unrest amongst EPO staff. As a first action a warning strike of 1 day is called.




Calendar and EPO sites concerned

The Strike “Enough is Enough” – in particular dedicated to the claim of the need to reinstate a proper SAP - shall take place on 15 December 2020 at all sites of employment: Munich, The Hague, Berlin, Vienna.

Please be assured that SUEPO has always been prepared to enter a fair social dialogue and continues to be so. If social dialogue in the time before the strike day leads to a substantial progress on the grounds for strike, we are willing to recommend to Staff to terminate the strike action.

Genuine social dialogue should be our shared goal: working together we can arrive at agreements that foster social peace and prevent further litigation.

Yours sincerely,

Joachim Michels Chairman of SUEPO Central

Copy: Mr Josef Kratochvíl; Chairman of the Administrative Council Heads of Delegation of the Administrative Council


Later today we'll publish some more material with more reasons for the strikes; readers ought to understand the why, not just the what (strike, protest, mass-mailing). EPO workers are collectively working not only for themselves but for labour rights everywhere; those rights are being eroded/crushed even in Europe's second-largest institution, setting a really bad precedent.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Free Software Foundation Subpoenaed by Serial GPL Infringers
These attacks on software freedom are subsidised by serial GPL infringers
Publicly Posting in Social Control Media About Oneself Makes It Public Information
sheer hypocrisy on privacy is evident in the Debian mailing lists
Frans Pop suicide and Ubuntu grievances
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Workers' Right to Disconnect Won't Matter If Such a Right Isn't Properly Enforced
I was always "on-call" and my main role or function was being "on-call" in case of incidents
A Discussion About Suicides in Science and Technology (Including Debian and the European Patent Office)
In Debian, there is a long history of deaths, suicides, and mysterious disappearances
Federal News Network is Corrupt, It Runs Propaganda Pieces for Microsoft
Federal News Network used to be OK some years ago
 
Paul Tagliamonte & Debian: White House, Pentagon, USDS and anti-RMS mob ringleader
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Jacob Appelbaum character assassination was pushed from the White House
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Why We Revisit the Jacob Appelbaum Story (Demonised and Punished Behind the Scenes by Pentagon Contractor Inside Debian)
If people who got raped are reporting to Twitter instead of reporting to cops, then there's something deeply flawed
Red Hat's Official Web Site is Promoting Microsoft
we're seeing similar things at Canonical's Ubuntu.com
Enrico Zini & Debian: falsified harassment claims
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
European Parliament Elections 2024: Daniel Pocock Running as an Independent Candidate
I became aware that Daniel Pocock had decided to enter politics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 30, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 30, 2024
[Meme] Sometimes Torvalds and RMS Agree on Things
hype around chatbots
[Video] Linus Torvalds on 'Hilarious' AI Hype: "I Hate the Hype" and "I Don't Want to be Part of the Hype", "You Need to Be a Bit Cynical About This Whole Hype Cycle"
Linus Torvalds on LLMs
Colin Watson, Steve McIntyre & Debian, Ubuntu cover-up mission after Frans Pop suicide
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: Wireless Carriers Selling Customer Location Data, Facebook Posts Causing Trouble
Links for the day
Links 30/04/2024: More Google Layoffs (Wide-Ranging)
Links for the day
Fresh Rumours of Impending Mass Layoffs at IBM Red Hat
"IBM filed a W.A.R.N with the state of North Carolina. That only means one thing."
Mark Shuttleworth's (MS's) Canonical is Promoting Microsoft This Week (Surveillance Slanted as 'Confidential')
Who runs Canonical these days? Why does Canonical help sell Windows?
What Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Can to Remedy the Damage Done to Frans Pop's Family
Mr. Shuttleworth and Canonical as a company can at the very least apologise for putting undue pressure
Amnesty International & Debian Day suicides comparison
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Meme] A Way to Get No Real Work Done
Walter White looking at phone: Your changes could not be saved to device
Modern Measures of 'Productivity' Boil Down to Time Wasting and Misguided Measurements/Yardsticks
People are forgetting the value of nature and other human beings
Countries That Beat the United States at RSF's World Press Freedom Index (After US Plunged Some More)
The United States (US) was 17 when these rankings started in 2002
Record Productivity and Preserving People's Past on the Net
We're very productive these days, partly owing to online news slowing down (less time spent on curating Daily Links)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 29, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, April 29, 2024
Links 30/04/2024: Malaysian and Russian Governments Crack Down on Journalists
Links for the day
Frans Pop Debian Day suicide, Ubuntu, Google and the DEP-5 machine-readable copyright file
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich), the mentality of sexual violence on campus
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Russian Reversal
Mark Shuttleworth: In Soviet Russia's spacecraft... Man exploits peasants
Frans Pop & Debian suicide denial
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Hard Evidence Reinforces Suspicion That Mark Shuttleworth May Have Worked Volunteers to Death
Today we start re-publishing articles that contain unaltered E-mails
The Real Threats to Society Include Software Patents and the Corporations That Promote Them
The OIN issue isn't a new one and many recognise this by now
Links 30/04/2024: OpenBSD and Enterprise Cloaking Device
Links for the day
Microsoft Still Owes Over 100 Billion Dollars and It Cannot be Paid Back Using 'Goodwill'
Meanwhile, Microsoft's cash at hand (in the bank) nearly halved in the past year.
[Teaser] Ubuntu Cover-up After Death
Attack the messenger
The Cyber Show Explains What CCTV is About
CCTV does not typically resolve crime
[Video] Ignore Buzzwords and Pay Attention to Attacks on Software Developers
AI in the Machine Learning sense is nothing new
Outline of Themes to Cover in the Coming Weeks
We're accelerating coverage and increasing focus on suppressed topics
[Video] Not Everyone Claiming to Protect the Vulnerable is Being Honest
"Diversity" bursaries aren't always what they seem to be
[Video] Enshittification of the Media, of the Web, and of Computing in General
It manifests itself in altered conditions and expectations
[Meme] Write Code 100% of the Time
IBM: Produce code for us till we buy the community... And never use "bad words" like "master" and "slave" (pioneered by IBM itself in the computing context)
[Video] How Much Will It Take for Most People to Realise "Open Source" Became Just Openwashing (Proprietary Giants Exploiting Cost-Free or Unpaid 'Human Resources')?
turning "Open Source" into proprietary software
Freedom of Speech... Let's Ban All Software Freedom Speeches?
There's a moral panic over people trying to actually control their computing
Richard Stallman's Talk in Spain Canceled (at Short Notice)
So it seems to have been canceled very fast
Links 29/04/2024: "AI" Hype Deflated, Economies Slow Down Further
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2024: Gopher Experiment and Profectus Alpha 0.9
Links for the day
[Video] Why Microsoft is by Far the Biggest Foe of Computer Security (Clue: It Profits From Security Failings)
Microsoft is infiltrating policy-making bodies, ensuring real security is never pursued
Debian 'Cabal' (via SPI) Tried to Silence or 'Cancel' Daniel Pocock at DNS Level. It Didn't Work. It Backfired as the Material Received Even More Visibility.
know the truth about modern slavery
Lucas Nussbaum & Debian attempted exploit of OVH Hosting insider
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is Not a Friend of Freedom
We'll shortly reproduce two older articles from disguised.work
Harassment Against My Wife Continues
Drug addict versus family of Techrights authors
Syria, John Lennon & Debian WIPO panel appointed
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 28, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, April 28, 2024
[Video] GNU and Linux Everywhere (Except by Name)
In a sense, Linux already has over 50% of the world's "OS" market