The hearing of Intel’s works council

If you have read through this blog you know how Intel’s inglorious works council has contributed to the story. They have been sure to please the company in all its misbehave. They finally have the chance to do what they are supposed to do. Will they?

Few days before my second dismissal I’ve got an email from HH, chairman of Intel works council, he informs me that he received complaints re about my behaviour and performances by manager TM and HR (in the meeting I’ll discover the employee is MTR). HH invites me to discuss about my “alleged behaviour” in front of all the works council.

To notice, in the email he use the word “alleged”, so he knows the accusations might not be true.

He also asked if I want to talk about the allegations with him or with the works council member RO. Knowing both of them I kindly refused and confirmed I will speak in front of the all works council.

Intel (fake) allegations are the usual:

• the bench is not working properly
• I missed to measure the devices before going on vacation

I prepared my defense. First of all, the meeting minutes where the project manager says that the devices haven’t arrived in the verification lab. Secondarily, I prepared a side-by-side comparison of the measurements with the 2 setups, where it is blatant clear that there is no appreciable difference between the 2 setups.

19 October 2018 at 9:00 in front of the complete works council. I don’t know the name of all the members. I recognize the chairman HH, the former chairman MK, other known members like RO, GO, RM. Person who have a long story of serving in Intel works council.

The chairman ask me about the allegations. I start with the story of me not having done the measurements before leaving for vacation. I have the evidences of the meeting minutes with the words of the project manager.

I explain the facts and then offer mister HH the paper with the evidence. Mister HH sits on the chair close to mine, he looks at me impassively, he remains motionless like if I were handing him a used condom. He refuses to take the evidence I was handing him. In that moment was clear, these loyal servant are here only to accomplish the legal step of my audience in front of the works council.

I tried again with the side-by-side comparison of the measurements of the 2 test benches. This time I offered the paper to the all audience, I waved the papers in front of them, asking if anyone wanted to see them. Most of them, engineers with technical background. Anyone silently looking his feet or the desk in front of them. Perhaps with only one thought in their mind: “I obey”.

The rest of the meeting is meaningless.

Intel inglorious works council will not contradict my dismissal, they will copy 1:1 the allegations coming from the company in their report. They will not report my objections nor my evidences in their report (even if mister HH was talking of alleged behaviour in his email).

I left the meeting and brought my evidences back with me. I have stored them in a folder with the label Shame of a works council.

Only as side note. To complete their misconduct, the works council hasn’t informed me properly what the meeting was: the necessary legal step to fire someone in Germany, the audience in front of the works council (Betriebsratsanhörung).