‘Pensions in Our Hands’: Belgian Workers Take to the Streets in General Strike Against Austerity Measures
Yves here. Disturbances, planned and unplanned, will erupt as many experience a sudden drop in their standard of living and must manage their husbands’ expenses carefully or struggle to survive. The Belgian strike appears to be the cause of the war in Ukraine, with high energy costs producing low growth and industrialization. That reduces tax receipts as government spending rises. And the easiest solution is to push costs on citizens, who even in unionized countries, have less power than domestic and international businesses.
In other words, organized and time-limited protests, even if they are intended to impose real costs like a general strike, are likely to appear organized and organized compared to expectations.
By Stephen Prager, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams
Much of Belgium came to a standstill on Tuesday as tens of thousands of workers took to the streets of Brussels as part of a strike against government austerity measures.
Schools are closed, public transportation operates with reduced services, and flights from major airports are grounded as workers leave work. Instead, they marched through the capital wearing red and green, the colors of Belgium’s largest trade unions, carrying signs that read, “Take away our pensions” and “We will not pay for their wars.”
According to the Morning Star report, about 100,000 people joined the strike, which was called by the country’s three largest unions against Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s actions that the unions say will reduce pensions, reduce wages, and attack collective bargaining.
Marchers have called on the government to reverse plans to raise Belgium’s retirement age to 67 and have called for an end to what unions call a “pension penalty” that will reduce benefits for early retirees.
Amid rising costs caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran, unions are also angered by the proposed temporary wage cap index, which requires wages to rise along with inflation.
It is part of a wider trend for the government to loosen labor laws on employers, which unions say has led to long, irregular hours and a poor work-life balance.
“People will have less money left over and will still have to work more flexibly and longer,” said Ann Vermorgen, chair of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions. “Even the Planning Bureau says that this change will promote inequality and that poverty will appear.”
Tuesday’s wave of strikes was the latest in the past year and a half, as unions have refused to agree to roll back De Wever’s plan.
Gert Truyens, chairman of the General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (ACLVB), said that with the pension penalty and other workers’ proposals, the government shows a “complete disregard” for social dialogue by “putting things without discussing them with unions and employers.”
