Yves here. Unrest, both organized and random, is set to explode as more and more suffer a sudden drop in their living standard and have to husband expenses carefully or even struggle to survive. This Belgian strike looks to be the fallout of the war in Ukraine, with higher energy costs producing lower growth and deindustrialization. That shrinks tax receipts as government expenses rise. And the easiest remedy is to push the costs on to citizens, who even in countries with unions, are less powerful than local and international businesses.
In other words, planned and time-limited protests, even if intended to impose real costs like a general strike, are likely to look tidy and orderly compared to what is in store.
By Stephen Prager, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
Much of Belgium ground to a halt on Tuesday as tens of thousands of workers flooded the streets of Brussels as part of a general strike against government austerity measures.
Schools closed, public transit operated with reduced service, and flights out of major airports were grounded as workers walked off the job. Instead, they marched through the capital clad in red and green, the colors of Belgium’s major labor unions, with some carrying signs that read, “Hands off our pensions” and “We will not pay the price of their wars.”
According to Morning Star, as many as 100,000 people took part in the strike, which was called by the nation’s three biggest trade unions in protest of measures by Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s government that the unions say slash pensions, reduce wages, and attack collective bargaining.
The marchers called on the government to roll back plans to raise Belgium’s retirement age to 67 and have called for an end to what the unions have dubbed a “pension penalty” that would cut benefits for those who retire early.
Amid rising costs caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran, the unions are also outraged by a proposed temporary capon wage indexation, which requires wages to rise in tandem with inflation.
It’s part of a broader trend of the government loosening labor rules for employers, which unions say has led to longer, more irregular hours and diminished employees’ work-life balance.
“People will have less money left over and will still have to work more flexibly and longer,” said Ann Vermorgen, the chair of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions. “Even the Planning Bureau says that the reform will promote inequality and that poverty will emerge.”
Tuesday’s general strike was just the latest over the past year and a half, as the unions have refused to let up on their push to reverse De Wever’s agenda.
Gert Truyens, the chair of the General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (ACLVB), said that with the pension penalty and the other labor proposals, the government was displaying “total disregard” for social dialogue by “unilaterally imposing things without discussing them with the trade unions and employers.”
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