Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lots of Legal Action Against the EPO Impending

A tsunami of legal cases on the horizon
"A tsunami of legal cases on the horizon" was circulated earlier today



Summary: The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) gives a heads-up regarding a "tsunami of legal cases on the horizon" against Europe's second-largest institution, which operates in the dark with impunity (and thus frequently breaks the law and breaks promises)

TOMORROW there's an EPO protest in Munich. The Netherlands isn't so near, but staff at The Hague also made plans, as we noted last week. The union will be recruiting members and it is pursuing further industrial actions.

The Benoît Battistelli era/reign of terror isn't over; his friend resumes all the attacks on staff, even at an unprecedented pace and scale.

"The Benoît Battistelli era/reign of terror isn’t over; his friend resumes all the attacks on staff, even at an unprecedented pace and scale."As it turns out, one can expect a lot more action, even if Campinos is tentatively shown the door (effective next year). In recent months the union and staff representatives repeatedly pointed out attacks on the welfare of staff and benefit that staff rightly came to expect (part of the package associated with relocating a family to another country/city).

Today, in the words of the staff representation, the Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) -- not to be mistaken for the union:

Staff Committee The Hague Comité du personnel de La Haye Personalausschuss Den Haag

28 June 2022

A tsunami of legal cases on the horizon

Education and childcare allowance reform

Dear Colleagues,

The Education and Childcare reform is becoming again the daily poisonous pill for affected staff in the Hague. A reform designed to be transparent, fair, reduce administrative burden, and give legal certainty is emerging to be the most ignominious reform of all time, making a mockery of the initial objectives of the reform.

It was not enough that managers mostly located in Munich ideated a reform which significantly reduces the Education and Childcare compensation for Staff in the Hague, now the Administration is on a mission to scrape the barrel and is looking for further cuts.

Day by day, parents are confronted with a new piece of information, highlighting a new cut to the education benefits. The list of cuts is becoming worthy to mention, and should bring to shame anybody who masterminded it.

The administration, in spite of committing to refund the direct costs for education, is now considering some direct and mandatory costs for schooling of students not to be refundable. These costs are often part of the tuition fees and in any case always a core part of the curriculum and/or mandatory for attendance of the school.

The list of excluded items now contains: mandatory trips, canteen supervision, exam fees, school fees (some fees of dubious nature newly rebranded by the British School), school activities, student expenses, technology fee, campus fee, regional taxes, etc. The list seems to be endless and will surely keep growing at the convenience of the Office.

However, the good news is that, considering the way the regulations are written (Art. 71 ServRegs, Circ. 411 and the other official documents), evident legal reasons for challenging the reform are present.

We therefore advise each staff member to request the refund of all disputed direct costs (any of those in the list above) to hrservices@epo.org requesting a ticket to be opened. If your request is rejected, we would like to remind you of the possibility to launch a Request for Review within the 3 month time period from the date of rejection.




Additionally, the new Education Allowance Portal is showing already major deficiencies which are troublesome for many staff members. Staff Representation TH is monitoring this issue very closely. For the time being, we would like to remind you of the advice of SUEPO to use a disclaimer (also in ANNEX below) to keep your right to challenge the discretionary request by the administration.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

With kind regards,

Your Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH)

[ANNEX omitted]


This may not be the most pressing/urgent thing at the moment, in light of this week's meeting, but this will manifest itself soon.

Recent Techrights' Posts

A Week After a Worldwide Windows Outage Microsoft is 'Bricking' Windows All On Its Own, Cannot Blame Others Anymore
A look back at a week of lousy press coverage, Microsoft deceit, and lessons to be learned
 
Links 26/07/2024: Tesco Cutbacks and Fake Patent Courts
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: Grimy Residue of the 'AI' Bubble and Tensions Around Alaska
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2024: More Computers and Tilde Hosting
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: "AI" Hype Debunked and Elon Musk's "X" Already Spreads Political Disinformation
Links for the day
"Why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software."
Ask McDonalds how this "AI" nonsense with IBM worked out for them
No Olympics
We really need to focus on real news
Nobody Holds the GNOME Foundation Accountable (Not Even IRS), It's Governed by Lawyers, Not Geeks, and Headed by a Shaman Crank
GNOME is a deeply oppressive institutions that eats its own
[Meme] The 'Modern' Web and 'Linux' Foundation Reinforcing Monopolies and Cementing centralisation
They don't care about the users and issuing a few bytes with random characters costs them next to nothing. It gives them control over billions of human beings.
'Boiling the Frog' or How Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is Being Abandoned at Short Notice by Let's Encrypt
This isn't a lack of foresight but planned obsolescence
When the LLM Bubble Implodes Completely Microsoft Will be 'Finished'
Excuses like, "it's not ready yet" or "we'll fix it" won't pass muster
"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs"
The lesson of this story is, if you do evil things, bad things will come your way. So don't do evil things.
When Wikileaks Was Still Primarily a Wiki
less than 14 years ago the international media based its war journalism on what Wikileaks had published
The Free Software Foundation Speaks Out Against Microsoft
the problem is bigger than Microsoft and in the long run - seeing Microsoft's demise - we'll need to emphasise Software Freedom
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 25, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, July 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 26/07/2024: E-mail on OpenBSD and Emacs Fun
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Talks of Increased Pension Age and Biden Explains Dropping Out
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Paul Watson, Kernel Bug, and Taskwarrior
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft's "Dinobabies" Not Amused
a slur that comes from Microsoft's friends at IBM
Flashback: Microsoft Enslaves Black People (Modern Slavery) for Profit, or Even for Losses (Still Sinking in Debt Due to LLMs' Failure)
"Paid Kenyan Workers Less Than $2 Per Hour"
From Lion to Lamb: Microsoft Fell From 100% to 13% in Somalia (Lowest Since 2017)
If even one media outlet told you in 2010 that Microsoft would fall from 100% (of Web requests) to about 1 in 8 Web requests, you'd probably struggle to believe it
Microsoft Windows Became Rare in Antarctica
Antarctica's Web stats still near 0% for Windows
Links 25/07/2024: YouTube's Financial Problem (Even After Mass Layoffs), Journalists Bemoan Bogus YouTube Takedown Demands
Links for the day
Gemini Now 70 Capsules Short of 4,000 and Let's Encrypt Sinks Below 100 (Capsules) as Self-Signed Leaps to 91%
The "gopher with encryption" protocol is getting more widely used and more independent from GAFAM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Techrights Statement on YouTube
YouTube is a dying platform
[Video] Julian Assange on the Right to Know
Publishing facts is spun as "espionage" by the US government and "treason" by the Russian government, to give two notable examples
Links 25/07/2024: Tesla's 45% Profit Drop, Humble Games Employees All Laid Off
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2024: Losing Grip and collapseOS
Links for the day
LWN (Earlier This Week) is GAFAM Openwashing Amplified
Such propaganda and openwashing make one wonder...
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Blog: Microsoft Operatives Promoting Proprietary Software for Microsoft
This is corruption
Libre-SOC Insiders Explain How Libre-SOC and Funding for Libre-SOC (From NLNet) Got 'Hijacked' or Seized
One worked alongside my colleagues and I in 2011
Why We're Revealing the Ugly Story of What Happened at Libre-SOC
Aside from the fact that some details are public already
Removing the Lid Off of 'Cancel Culture' (in Tech) and Shutting It Down by Illuminating the Tactics and Key Perpetrators
Corporate militants disguised as "good manners"
FSF, Which Pioneered GNU/Linux Development, Needs 32 More New Members in 2.5 Days
To meet the goal of a roughly month-long campaign
Lupa Statistics, Based on Crawling Geminispace, Will Soon Exceed Scope of 4,000 Capsules
Capsules or unique capsules or online capsules are in the thousands and growing
Links 24/07/2024: Many New Attacks on Journalists, "Private Companies Own The Law"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2024: Face à Gaïa, Emacs Timers for Weekly Event, Chromebook Survives Water Torture
Links for the day
Why Virtually All the Wikileaks Copycats, Forks, and Rivals Basically Perished
Cryptome is like the "grandpa" of them all
A Total Lack of Transparency: Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) Fails to Explain Why Over 60% of Users Are Gone (Since a Week Ago)
IRC giants have fallen
In the United Kingdom Google Search Rises to All-Time High, Microsoft Fell Nearly 1.5% Since the LLM Hype Began
Microsoft is going to need actual products or it will gradually vanish from the market
Trying to Put Out the Fire at Microsoft
Microsoft is drowning in debt while laying off loads of staff, hoping it can turn things around
GNU/Linux Growing at Vista 11's Expense
it's tempting to deduce many people who got PCs with Vista 11 preinstalled are deleting it, only to replace it with GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 23, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 23, 2024