Summary: Today we take a closer look at what Sirius ‘Open Source’ management said about unions. We have plenty left to say about Sirius ‘Open Source’ (many posts already; about 200!), so we expect this series to go on until next month. We’ll show a lot more examples and evidence of scandals.

FOUR years ago I seriously considered leaving Sirius in light of the abuse suffered due to management being liars and manipulative bullies. The abuse started only weeks after the Gates Foundation had gotten involved, according to our records (we re-checked the dates recently). Earlier this winter or in autumn I had already made up my mind, having tentatively decided to do that around 12 months ago (leaving the company), but Rianne is another story. Rianne did not want to leave. My own motivations were explained in blog posts last year. Ethics were a key part of it, instrumental in the decision-making. The company ceased to be ethical.

Earlier this month we showed that a boss had picked on my wife using non-evidence and non-facts. It was a total disaster (we previously showed Rianne’s resignation letter and Rianne’s departure message at tuxmachines.org). A boss who hoped to prove that Rianne had done something wrong ended up doing many wrong things himself. For more information see Anatomy of a Corporate Witch-Hunt, especially parts like these, which reveal the full chain of correspondence. People can assess that for themselves. Readers can form their own opinions.

Here at Techrights we’ve been covering many union-related activities, especially at the EPO (since 2014, i.e. nearly a decade already). So we’ve spent more time studying this situation at Sirius, striving to accurately explain that “fluke”. The gist of the story is, on November 18^th a letter was sent to Rianne, probably before the company was getting legal advice and before Rianne herself could seek legal advice. Rianne insisted that she should be given time to speak to a lawyer.

Then, on November 28^th, an entirely different letter was sent. Ever so suddenly the tone of the letter and content changed because the boss and the sidekick apparently spoke to actual HR people for the first time. They checked the law and realised they had left something out. These gross omissions — and more generally the unprofessional management style — were consistent with what had been criticised for years already. This merely reinforced the legitimacy of the criticism.

“My lawyer says I can be accompanied not only by a trade union person,” Rianne wrote to the bully. “Sirius doesn’t have a union.”

The response came about a day later (after the revised letter):

Dear Rianne,

Thanks for your message.

As per our letter, you are entitled to be accompanied by either a work colleague or by a Trades Union representative.

Just to be clear, it is not Sirius’ responsibility to run or operate a Union. Trades Unions are independent bodies that operate separately to employers so that they can work for the benefit of their members.

It is also not Sirius’ responsibility to nominate a suitable Trades Union. It is a right under UK law for each employee to make an individual decision to choose whether or not they wish to join a Union. Sirius is an equal opportunity employer and makes no distinction at all between those who are members of a Trade Union and those who are not.

Kind regards,

There’s a lot wrong with that response and an upcoming video will elaborate some more. Rianne responded by stating that it was a false dichotomy and moreover the boss admitted that he would “tinker” with the witness prior to any meeting and be in a position to even deny the request. This means that any impartial or sympathetic (to Rianne) witness is deemed disqualified or subject to judgement (or warning) from the accuser. Cushioning a ‘kangaroo court’ with more kangaroos does not improve things — it merely gives the illusion of balance even where none exists. It’s like those notorious compositions in internal appeals at the EPO — compositions that were repeatedly deemed inadequate by the ILOAT.

Rianne never bothered with that stupid ‘kangaroo court’. She had already suffered enough for 4 years. She wasn’t planning to waste any more time in such a corrupt company. On Friday at 4PM a PDF was sent and on Saturday morning she formally resigned, having explained how she felt about the whole thing (see links in the relevant wiki for contents of the PDF).

Our current plan is to explain these matters and in the coming fortnight or so we’ll be publishing many more blog posts (they’re semi-drafted already) — with many more later, according to any further issues that arise (like the company trying to silence us). We cross-post, add to wiki etc. in order to better preserve access to all this information. We won’t allow that to be censored. The long report, followed by a PDF version, was already seen by the company a very long time ago. They knew what was coming. They didn’t know what to do. All the writing was done only after the bullying. In recent weeks we had to check with pension providers if the company was trying to ‘punish’ us through pensions. This is still under investigation (the pension provider opened a ticket for this and keeps updating us). This series has not been easy to publish as the company attempted to prevent access to our own E-mails! The company failed at it, so we still have access to evidence that vindicates us. We have some long articles on the way and maybe then some more blog posts (remaining notes, more embarrassing examples). We’ve meanwhile learned about the impact on the company. It can pretend all it wants that it doesn’t care, but it hurts really badly. That’s karma. Think before you shoot. Check the law before you leap to conclusions.

In the next part we’ll take a look at Carbon Accounting, which is where Sirius claims to be based. As we showed before, not only the company Sirius but also its CEO use their accountants to pretend to have an office. Sirius is a very fake company. It’s run by phonies who lie to the staff and to clients.

People aged 15-44: 215 deaths in 2019, increasing to 282 in 2023 (31.2% increase)

People aged 45-64: 1199 deaths in 2019, increasing to 1518 in 2023 (27% increase)

All the numbers as one screenshot below, for readers to easily audit.

Data: Deaths by week, Week 1 2023 compared to pre-COVID-19 years (ODF)

Here’s how the first week of the year compares to pre-COVID average:

Original data released half an hour ago:

he December undercount was last mentioned here 7 days ago. It still has not been corrected, so I’ve E-mailed the relevant department of ONS:

Dear Sarah Caul,

I have been tracking ONS data very closely for about a year and I wrote over 100 blog posts about it. Thanks for the relatively (compared to other countries) rapid data disclosure on deaths per week. Corporate media does not need to lie about the data if it can relay false narratives and spin. That’s why people should not rely on the media; check the data. I go by the data. My Ph.D. was in Medical Biophysics, focusing on statistics.

Political intervention is always a threat. You proudly disclose you’re not subjected to political influence. This is great news.

I rely a lot on (and appreciate) the data you release every Tuesday morning at around 10AM. Hence, the integrity of the data is important to me. Editorialising it and repeating government communication strategies (debunked online) distracts from the core data. So I try to stay away from the textual stuff.

In your last update before Christmas you said clearly (in very large fonts) that there was an undercount, which was presented and contained in the datasheet. I took screenshots of that. 3 updates later, however, this number (undercount) has not been amended/corrected. Can you explain, clarify, rectify this? I wish to know what happened in the start of December when there was an undercount.

Kind regards,

If I receive a reply, I will share the gist of it or the whole thing. Depends on sensibilities. If they do not reply, I will ask again. These people are paid by us to inform us.

AM by no means a germophobe. I never was. Chronic and irrational fear of germs, viruses etc. overlooks the point that microorganisms are everywhere, all the time. But over the past few years it’s undeniable that many people overwhelmed hospitals, as COVID-19 had spread, causing massive fatigue in the NHS. Many GPs and nurses resigned. Many others don’t want to go “in there”. Back in 2020 I had an appointment prospectively scheduled by the NHS, but it took them almost 3 months to actually contact me and ask about a date. I had already forgotten about that by then. There was nothing worth going to anymore. In some contexts, such as cancer screeninings, such delays can be lethal/fatal. To be clear, my appointment was for something very minor, predating the worst of COVID-19. I even gave up on it, seeing that other people needed access to physicians a lot more than I needed it.

The mayhem of COVID-19 never ended. A huge number of Brits died last year. In spite of vaccines? Because of them? Lack of funding for the NHS? Lasting effects of COVID recovery? The government does not even bother investigating. It doesn’t wish to know or doesn’t want us to know.

ONS is still publishing figures about deaths, even if data is missing (according to ONS itself!). The “official” figures in https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ are a laughing stock. They’re barely even worth citing anymore as they’re incomplete by design. They became like an instrument of government and media propaganda.

Learning for oneself how safe it is to mingle with people, knowing that the health system is mostly unavailable or barely available, just makes sense. Some people aren’t given a choice because as part of their job — their livelihood — they must interact with people. Masks are increasingly being mocked or frowned upon. Distancing isn’t always possible (in some jobs and activities).

2023 is here and the lock-downs soon turn 3. For some of us, limited social contact (physical, in-person) is still a reality, a fact of life. Let’s wait and see what ONS publishes later today (about 3 hours from now). Are excess deaths still going through the roof? Are more deaths “gone missing”?

Video download link | md5sum 93ed07dde58f9f18674c2d75a0c2a72c
Management That Dislikes Geeks
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: Sirius ‘Open Source’ has devolved into a kakistocracy that lies to staff and gaslights technical workers. This is how companies perish.

TODAY’S COVERAGE of Sirius focused on how the company was treating valuable geeks, whom the company should thank and be grateful to even have. It can barely hire any more; those who come leave very quickly.

A deficit of technical knowledge has long doomed the company. A deficit of technical staff is even worse. Treating them like “crap” only makes things worse, leading to dissent, protest, and resignations. The video above covers the latest meme and article. Tomorrow we’ll talk about unions.

My wife Rianne never appreciated these insulting analogies (calling NOC staff “monkeys” and treating them accordingly)

5 Little Monkeys Swinging In The Tree

Summary: As per Rianne’s departure message about Sirius ‘Open Source’ (tuxmachines.org post), the abuse endured since 2019 did a lot of damage and false accusations were the last straw; the role was created by people who called folks who would occupy it “monkeys”; that’s how some would view the staff

THE staff will always remember what happened. The staff does not forget bullying. Witch-hunts are also impossible to forget. While Rianne strongly suspects that Matthew Garrett ‘doxxed’ her to her employer as part of his efforts to silence me, the more plausible explanation is that Sirius management was looking for excuses to quell technical dissent and moral defense. I’ve been arguing against many of the company’s decisions for a long time (internally).

I wasn’t alone though; other staff also felt unhappy and some found the courage to speak about it, not just to peers but also to management. We’ve already shown a bunch letters after videos on grievances and there might be a letter-ripping video after explaining and showing the chain of events.

Adding insult to injury, in Rianne’s case her love of animals and regular donations to animal charities were sort of weaponised, hence the image below:

The company relied on truly ‘flimsy’ ‘evidence’. The management said, without any evidence, that I had uttered something “defamatory”; it took two weeks to actually show something and what they then showed was some side IRC channel (that nobody reads) stating perfectly factual information about my experiences, without naming people or the company. It was a chat between just two people and didn’t reveal anybody’s identity. It was factual and necessary; it was moral to object to bad ideas. Blind obedience and unquestionable docility should not be seen as a merit.

Based on a two-person chat, however, the company started breaching protocols and making up processes, as we shall show at a later date. The procedures set forth were disregarded and extreme measures taken for no good reason, so we resigned. It was done with immediate effect, as per the law; and “you are unlikely, in most circumstances, to need to continue the process,” say the rules. So we’re free to speak about what happened. We shall soon talk about labour union aspects as well. It’s something I’ve spoken about with friends for almost 4 years already.

In a company where some technical workers are compared to “monkeys” and there are about as many “managers” as non-managers, something has truly gone wrong. We had a moral duty or felt an urgent need to explain what had gone wrong. We now have a wiki that maintains several sections, including: memes, videos, report, key facts in a nutshell…

We’ve published about 45 videos with good titles (explaining in short the issues at hand), cases of clients (without naming them), openwashing, clown-washing etc.

As a reminder, we talk about a company that despite opposition from its own technical staff basically outsourced almost everything (Sirius also used to host for clients, on its very own premises). It used to self-host even the VoIP and file storage, but now, with no actual office, Sirius is just some account in another company’s server.

As we’ve said before, the company stands no chance of surviving. It’s deep in debt and it doesn’t know what it’s doing. Even its own clients began accusing it of “incompetence” (direct quote). When I joined the company in 2011 the staff had extensive media contacts in the wiki (for outreach, promotion, advocacy). It deteriorated over time as management was dismissing people without informing staff what actually happened (not safe to rely on hearsay and misinformation). Then, in Freenode, there was already an outlet for staff to discuss issues. Tackling a tradition of secrecy (dishonest management, but not quiet management), the IRC channel about the company insisted that “management wasn’t always right”, hence the need for a space in which bosses could be scrutinised. Now we do this in Techrights. The “monkeys” speak out.