Staff at the European Patent Office (EPO) will strike this Thursday in protest at how the organization’s management continues to treat its union officials. All employees at the EPO’s offices in Munich, The Hague, Berlin and Vienna will stage a one-day strike in protest of the patent office’s targeting of staff that opposed reform efforts. SUEPO has not been saying much rectently,but the EPO will be on strike and Mr. Erst has been choosen to replace Konqstad
Background
Last month, the administrative council also pushed on management to sign an agreement with SUEPO that would acknowledge its legitimacy “with no pre-conditions,” and create a framework for discussions to resolve a number of outstanding issues. SUEPO remains unhappy with the memorandum of understanding (MoU) that the EPO management has put forward, however. Among their concerns is an effort by the EPO to cement its extra-judicial status by obliging SUEPO to be “bound by the legal framework applicable to the EPO.”Due to its unusual nature, the EPO is not obliged to follow the laws of the countries in which it resides, and Battistelli has used that fact to introduce rules that would be illegal otherwise, including restrictive strike conditions, rules around elections for staff representatives, and policies around sick leave, among other things.
If SUEPO signs the agreement as currently written, it would effectively sign up to the very rules that it is protesting and which led to EPO’s management aggressively targeting the union leaders when they opposed the changes. The agreement would also oblige EPO staff to follow rules that can be changed at any point by the EPO’s management without requiring union approval – something that SUEPO says “amounts to signing a blank check.”Among other concerns, the MoU also does not deal with what would happen if it was not possible for the union and management to reach agreement. Typically in such contracts there is an agreement to use an independent arbitrator to resolve disputes.
SUEPO Claims
SUEPO claims that the EPO management disregarded its counter proposal, which it says was built on European best practice guidelines, “without any further discussion.”It concludes: “With additionally three SUEPO officials sanctioned in Munich and three more expecting the same in The Hague, it is not clear how union recognition talks can be taken up again. Under the circumstances agreement seems a long way away.”Battistelli is obliged to provide an update to his administrative council at its next meeting in June. If he is unable to show progress, it is expected that the council will take a firmer hand.
Battistelli at the helm
With Battistelli at the helm many layoffs seem inventable anyway.May be that was just Battistelli’s intention all along; maybe he wanted to destroy the EPO and bring rise to the UPC.
Either way, the employees are really fed up and today is the last day in the EPO (for people who go on strike) why the press is unseen? We have already notified some people in the media, yet they are very reluctant to point out this.
Assumption of New chief
Mr Ernst (DE) is the new chief of AC at the EPO,” said the next comment .”There is at least one more year of Battistelli; we very strongly doubt Ernst will work to oust him any earlier than that.“Battistelli and Bergot ought to see their immunity lifted and sued for what they did,” said the next comment, which is also quote worthy.
Conclusion
We will investigate the exit of the ILO. It may take some time to do the analysis, in any way, the ILO is seen in many ways as an interaction (and rightfully, as we have recently shown). With EPO management, not much with secret meetings and representatives of EPO employees, I say a lot about ILO’s prejudice.
