Bonum Certa Men Certa

ILOAT Finally Overturns Battistelli's Vichyite Strike Regulations

ILO screenshot
The Judgments of the ILOAT's 132nd Session were announced in Geneva on 7 July 2021



Summary: An explanation of the blow suffered by António Campinos and the person who gave him the job; ILOAT (or ILO-AT) belatedly -- or eight years late! -- assessed Battistelli's Vichyite strike regulations

There was some good news for EPO staff from Geneva on Wednesday when the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO announced its judgments from the recent 132nd Session, held between 24 May and 28 June 2021.

A significant number of the judgments related to Benoît Battistelli's notorious "Strike Regulations" which were adopted eight years ago in June 2013.



"But despite such clearly expressed reservations, the Administrative Council turned a blind eye to the palpable defects in the proposals tabled by Team Battistelli and - like a bunch of headless chickens - voted to adopt these manifestly flawed measures whose illegality has now been exposed for all to see."On 27 June 2013, following a proposal by the President of the Office [PDF], the Administrative Council adopted decision CA/D 5/13 [PDF] amending the EPO Service Regulations (which entered into force on 1 July 2013).

Amongst other things, CA/D 5/13 created a new Article 30a of the Service Regulations concerning the right to strike.

Article 30a sets out some basic rules concerning strikes, defining what is meant by a “strike” and indicating, amongst other things, that a call for a strike can be initiated by a staff committee, an association of employees, or a group of employees, and that the decision to start a strike must be the result of a vote by the employees. Paragraph 10 of Article 30a authorises the President of the Office to lay down further terms and conditions for the application of Article 30a.

Relying on that provision, on 28 June 2013 the former Vice-President of DG4, Mr Željko Topić - acting on behalf of the President - issued Circular No. 347 containing “Guidelines applicable in the event of strike”, which likewise entered into effect on 1 July 2013.

At the time of their adoption in 2013, Battistelli's Strike Regulations were strongly criticised by EPO staff representatives and the staff union SUEPO. This criticism was shared by outside observers of the social conflict at the EPO which was being escalated to new heights by Battistelli's authoritarian management style à la France Telecom.

An article entitled "The President Repeals A Fundamental Right?" authored by Sylvie Jacobs, the Chairperson of the EU staff union, Union Syndicale Fédérale, which appeared in the January 2014 issue of the USF Newsletter [PDF], Agora, described Battistelli's régime at the EPO in the following terms:

"EPO President Battistelli’s HR policy reveals a serious lack of understanding of fundamental rights of workers, in particular their right of association in the form of a trade-union."


Later that year, in November 2014 [PDF], a position paper issued by the staff union SUEPO entitled "Social Conflict at the European Patent Office" noted that "such measures are unprecedented in Europe, apart from Italy’s Carta del Lavoro (B. Mussolini, 1927) and Spain’s Fuero del Trabajo (F. Franco, 1938)."

In drawing comparisons between Battistelli's oppressive Strike Regulations and those of fascist-corporatist régimes that flourished in Europe during the inter-war period of the 20th century, SUEPO forgot to mention the example which was probably closest to Battistelli's heart: the Labour Code or "Charte du Travail" adopted in 1941 by Philippe Pétain's Vichy State. The repressive labour and social policies of Pétain's État Français were closely modelled on those of Fascist Italy.

Vichy Battistelli
Did Maréchal Pétain's Vichy State provide the role model for Battistelli's repressive regime at the EPO?



With Judgment no. 4430 [PDF], the ILOAT delivered on 7 July 2021, the ILOAT belatedly hammered another long overdue nail into the coffin of "le Système Battistelli" at the EPO, by striking down Circular No. 347 as manifestly unlawful.

This long-awaited judgment is good news for all those who opposed the tyrannical regime of Team Battistelli over the last decade.

While this significant legal victory is a cause for celebration, it should not be allowed to obscure the precarious legal situation of the staff of the EPO and other international organisations who are dependent on Tribunals like the ILOAT to defend their rights.

Notwithstanding the fact that Circular No. 347 has been found to breach the fundamental rights of EPO staff, it remained in force for eight years!

During this time it was used repeatedly to underpin the Corsican despot's managerialist "Reign of Terror" and impede any kind of internal dissent and collective action on the part of EPO staff against the excesses of the Office Administration.

Even more outrageous is the fact that at the time of the adoption of the Strike Regulations in 2013, the small number of delegations on the Administrative Council that made any attempt to evaluate the proposed measures had grave doubts about their compliance with international conventions.

An internal memorandum from the Norwegian Department of Labour dated 26 June 2013 [PDF] expressed the following opinion:

"The Department of Labour is therefore skeptical about a solution with an administrative regulation and about the content that, at a quick glance, seems extremely dubious in respect of its compliance with applicable international conventions."


But despite such clearly expressed reservations, the Administrative Council turned a blind eye to the palpable defects in the proposals tabled by Team Battistelli and - like a bunch of headless chickens - voted to adopt these manifestly flawed measures whose illegality has now been exposed for all to see.

Will any lessons be learned from this débâcle?

One would like to think so, but unfortunately the track record of the Administrative Council and the senior management of the Office over the last decade doesn't provide much reason for optimism on this front.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
 
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025