Belgium hit by largest general strike in 40 years
Workers in Belgium have taken part in an unprecedented three-day nationwide general strike this week, protesting against austerity measures.
The strike was part of a three-day action beginning on Monday with workers in public transport and railways, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
On Tuesday all public services—administrators, hospital workers, postal workers, and educators—went on strike. This culminated in an “interprofessional general strike” on Wednesday. Picket lines and gatherings were organised throughout the country.
The strike follows a march of 140,000 on 14 October—the biggest demonstration in the streets of Brussels for decades.
This was a march against an extreme right wing government imposing a set of hard cuts to pensions, social benefits, health, education and culture and a crackdown on migration. All this happened in the context of a huge increase in military spending.
This demonstration was itself the high point of monthly actions initiated by trade unions which began when the new government was elected in June 2024 and announced billions of euros of cuts.
The new budget involved severe attacks on the living standard of workers. It will literally throw a whole layer of already poor people into extreme hardship. It means attacks on pensions, mainly by “punishing” all those who want to stop working before the age of 67.
It also means attacks on social benefits, excluding from benefits all workers who have been unemployed for more than two years. And the budget meant forcing 100,000 workers on long-term sick leave to return to work.
The government also imposed longer hours on teachers without any salary increase and other measures which will lead to the loss of hundreds of teaching jobs. And it is raising the cost of university education.
Workers in the cultural sector and artists in general will also see their income and security dramatically decrease.
The measures also involve new attacks on migrants by making family reunification more difficult.
Not surprisingly, the super-rich remain virtually unaffected. Leaders of the government announced they would introduce tighter controls on tax evasion. They tried to claim this would make the super-rich contribute to financing the budget.
Everywhere on social media, observers underline the incredible contempt the leaders of the two main parties, Georges-Louis Bouchez and Bart De Wever, show for the citizens on strike and those who dare talk about the threat of the far right.
Anger has been growing among the population over the past year, especially in layers that were previously not particularly politically involved nor left-wing.
During the strikes, the placards have shown people’s anger, with slogans like “Precarity is not a project of society”, “Tax the rich”, “No democracy without culture”.
Demonstrators called for solidarity not only among the various working sectors but also with immigrants. Others denounced divesting in culture while investing in war. Importantly, they were also countless placards reminding us of the genocide in Palestine and the government’s complicity.
Actions took place in major cities outside Brussels, like Liege, where government ministers were welcomed by up to 600 angry demonstrators.
Mainstream newspaper Le Soir described the strike as a huge success throughout the country’s three regions—Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. Unions talk about the highest rate of participation in action in more than 40 years.
The last day of the strike was led by a common front of all Belgian trade unions, who called for more strikes if the government does not listen. The plan is already set for more action. And there is a longer term battle to make sure this government either falls or is not reelected in 2029.
Similar news
