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Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Treating workers like prisoners on probation.
Image: Klaus Grabinski: We'll be the Wagner private military company (PMC) of patentsThe kangaroo court of Klaus Grabinski just needs a bunch of “examiner fodder” now
Image: 1984 deskd
Image: 1984 desk
Image: 1984 desk personal
Summary: Only one in 12 workers of the EPO favours the new system dubbed Bringing Teams Together (BTT), based on an internal survey of sorts
LAST week the EPO‘s Local Staff Committee of Munich and Brussels (LSCMN) wrote to staff about the misleadingly-named Bringing Teams Together (BTT) initiative; its very own creators or pushers are among its casualties. It was a very dumb idea, maybe a bad idea by design (to drive out the workforce without paying severance). António Campinos and his cronies seem to be “finishing the job” of Benoît Battistelli, who already revoked permanent contracts. So what will be left of the EPO? Scabs and contractors like Serco [1, 2, 3]? How low does this go and what about complying with the European Patent Convention (EPC)? The EPC is intentionally being violated, according to EPO staff [1, 2].
=> EPO | António Campinos | Benoît Battistelli | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2
“Thankfully, owing to anonymity and unionisation, staff of the EPO can speak out and strike back.”
The EPO’s management has built a system of corrupt autocracy, adjusting the standards to something one might expect in the underworld. Thankfully, owing to anonymity and unionisation, staff of the EPO can speak out and strike back. Here’s the message LSCMN sent to staff last week:
Dear colleagues,
We would like to thank you for the feedback that you have provided in response to our call for feedback “Has BTT improved your life in the Office?” We received over 100 detailed E-mails. We will make sure that your feedback is passed on to management in anonymized form. Around 8% expressed an overall positive view, 6% were neutral and 86% expressed an overall negative view.
In this paper we provide a list of the issues you reported to us.
We would like to invite the Office to a dedicated meeting on this crucial topic. We already asked for this, in March, in an open letter (still unanswered).
We believe that much could have been done better in regard to BTT and much money could have been saved had management only listened more carefully to staff.
Your Local Staff Committee of Munich and Brussels – LSCMN
Here’s what they got based on over 100 workers:
Munich, 28.06.2023 sc23014mp
Part 1: Problems
Dear colleagues,
We warmly thank you for the feedback that you have provided in response to our publication of 16 May 2023, “Has BTT improved your life in the Office?”. Among the very quickly received answers (most of them within 1 day) were over 100 detailed E-mails, from a first cohort of respondents, for us to evaluate. We will make sure that your feedback is passed on to management in anonymized form.
Your replies allowed us to produce a fairly detailed picture of the situation from both a qualitative and a quantitative viewpoint: this publication relates to the qualitative viewpoint and a second publication will follow shortly on the quantitative aspects. Around 8% of response expressed an overall positive view, 6% were neutral and 86% expressed an overall negative view.
Hereinbelow is a list of problems (or groups of problems) that we could compile, based on your feedback, starting from those mainly or exclusively related to the Workplaces for a Day, listed in decreasing frequency of occurrence. For some of the secondary issues, solutions are being tested in some units and may be applied more generally, using the principle of best practice. However, for the fundamental issues we believe that there is no other solution than providing significantly more workspace in the buildings for staff, (which is, anyway, abundantly available), in particular by allocating a fixed office to all colleagues working at least 3 days per week in the Office in line with the statements made by VP4 in front of the Administrative Council. We already asked for this, in March, in an open letter.
We will continue to concentrate our efforts in achieving this objective, which would be of benefit for both staff and the Office. We would also like to invite the Office to a dedicated meeting on this crucial topic. We believe that much could have been done better and much money could have been saved had management only listened more carefully to staff. We will, of course, continue to make your voices heard by the management.
[Redacted]
Very common issues related to Workplace for a day
- Disconnection from team members and/or the Office (even feeling not welcome)
- Daily adjustment of working space (displays, audio, chair, and table)
- Booking issues (e.g. double-booking, unallowable booking, booked but not used, clumsy booking tool, inability to book close to other team members; need to book at least one week/10 days in advance; complicated tool; booking tool not remembering preferred locations; competition in booking with the colleagues; Workplaces for a Day assigned to a team not yet bookable; anonymous booking being allowed; no distinction between “public” Workplaces for a day and those allocated to a unit; need to book a Workplaces for a day while still on leave)
Common issues related to Workplace for a day
- Colleagues cannot easily be found with Workplaces for a Day, even team members are difficult to find
- Feeling as “second class” staff
- Workplaces for a Day are very impersonal – making staff not want to come to the office
- Not knowing who is occupying neighbouring offices
- Hygiene issues (comprising cleaning staff arriving too early)
- Workplaces for a Day being ergonomically inappropriate (e.g., too small, inappropriate chairs)
- Too few Workplaces for a Day being close to the location of the team
- Needing to find first the Workplaces for a Day / forgetting where to work on a given day
- Too few single offices and too many double offices (working with strangers in double rooms, problems during meetings, difficulties in concentrating; OP in examination not possible since they are not public)
Occasional issues related to Workplace for a day
- Lockers too small or even missing
- Need to gather personal belongings from and returning them to the lockers
- Printer issues (how to find them and their ID, far away)
- Hardware not working (e.g. being unable to connect the laptop, monitors not functioning)
- Personal items being lost (also in the removal)
- Sense of insecurity for personal items as offices cannot be locked
- Stale air in offices for a day
- Basic office material missing (paper, pen, stapler, etc.)
- Needing to lock the laptop when leaving the office
- Some colleagues reported stopping dealing with oppositions (due to the extra stress related to Workplaces for a Day)
- Negative mutual control on the use of booked Workplaces for a Day
- Colleagues opening the door of your Workplace for a Day, also without knocking, to check if it is free
- Fighting for scarce resources
- No keys being available for the cupboards
Occasional issues related to Workplace for a day and related to a specific location
- Lack of privacy and worse room quality (Isar rooms)
- One directorate does not use the booking tool – offices are allocated on a first come first served basis. Some colleagues commented that they are losing 10 minutes each day trying to get an office; anxiety since it might be that no room will be available (ISAR)
- BT8 rooms worse than rooms in BT 1-4
- No Workplace for a Day available, but permanently allocated workplaces remain unoccupied (TH)
- Disillusionment: Some colleagues found BTT initially compelling but have now changed their minds. The alleged objectives of Bringing Teams Together and enhancing team spirit and collaboration have not been met.
- Poor management communication on BTT
- Room issues (bad sound isolation, noisy room, too small, double room instead of single one)
- Health issues, more stress, up to depression, psychological pressure when living and working at home
- Chaotic planning and implementation of BTT
- Lack of respect from higher management
- Loss of efficiency; in general, due to too many changes and too quickly
- Pigeonholes: unordered, far away, too small, cannot send confidential mail
- Unfair distribution of offices among the teams
- Not knowing where the emergency exit is located
- Degradation of the relation with the line manager
- Some colleagues have not received a fixed office despite working 4 or even 5 days a week in the Office
- Perception that costs are being shifted from Office to staff
- No ViCo rooms for OP in opposition for division members
“Some colleagues reported stopping dealing with oppositions (due to the extra stress related to Workplaces for a Day)” shows the impact on patent quality (and validity or compliance). Maybe the actual goal of all this is to demoralise staff, drive away staff, then claim a lack of “demand” for desks. Heck, maybe they want to outsource the whole thing to some private company, the EU, or even low-cost labour in another country (like Campinos did in Alicante just before he joined the EPO as "President" almost exactly 5 years ago). █
=> like Campinos did in Alicante just before he joined the EPO as "President"
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