Belgian workers'
But despite the heavy financial losses suffered by the workers, as the growth of the spontaneous public workers strike shows, the result has not been demoralization but growing bitterness. That was the meaning of the Charleroi traindrivers' message to their union representatives, "We're fed up."
Before the latest austerity measures, cup of bitterness
Belgian public workers were already being paid 40% less than their counterparts in the Netherlands, 50% less than those in overtlows
West Germany, and 56% less than those in Luxembourg
This disadvantage by comparison with equivalent workers in the surrounding countries was acutely felt by public workers in such a small state as Belgium, which traditionally has been no poorer
In less than a week, a strike begun spontaneously by a tiny group of workers spread throughout the public services and transport in Belgium and began to paralyze the
This protest grew into one of the most massive and explosive movements against austerity yet seen in Western Europe.
the deliberate and calculated betrayal of the national union leaderships.
But these astonishing two weeks have certainly left a deep imprint on the minds of the masses of Belgian working people.
spond.
But the pattern has been, as confirmed again by this astonishing explosion, an ascending spiral of struggle despite repeated betrayals.
Gerry FOLEY
CHARLEROI - By September 9, the mood among the Belgian public workers had reached the boiling point. It took just three or four train drivers in Charleroi to touch off a massive rebellion.
Rene Andersen, a leader of the Charleroi train workers, explained how it all started to La Gauche, guage paper of the Belgian section of the
"At 9:30 in the Charleroi-South station, three or four train drivers were discussing among themselves. They decided
Within five minutes they got the support of the switch operators.
Arguing that the security conditions had not been met, they did not give the goahead signals.
"Within half an hour, a whole series of station and yard personnel followed the
Then, little by little the news of the shutdown spread to all the railway personnel, including other regions."
"Within half an
Andersen continued:
hour also, the full-timer for the CGSP
(the public workers union affiliated to the
Socialist Party-dominated Belgian General
Confederation of Labor - the FGTB/
ABVV) was contacted.
He was told:
We're fed up.
We read the information you put out. We're stopping work.' "
The union had put out a series of flyers explaining the content of the new austerity measures proposed by the rightwing Martens-Gol government.
The railway workers were hit the hard-
First of all, the new program put in question any payment of bonuses.
Octave Lambeau, chief shop steward for the train drivers in Louvain explained the impact of these measures to La
It remains to be seen how they will re-
INFURIATED RAIL WORKERS
"At the start of their careers, train
29,000 Belgian (about 580 US dollars) per month before deductions. These wages are supplemented, however, by bonuses for night and week-end work that add up to about
"According to the government's new proposal, we would also lose a months wages because of the shift of the payment date to the end of the month."
"The ranks are hoping that this time the leaderships, in whom their confidence has been shaken, will not let them down again.
The train-drivers' action, thus, sembled the January-February dockers strike in Denmark against the austerity plan of the right-wing Schlueter govern-
In both cases, a key section of workers were directly hit and took the lead in the fightback. Given the dispersed nature of the railway work force, moreover, the role of the train drivers was crucial.
In Belgium, the train drivers were able. to draw all the public workers and important sections in private industry behind them, at least for a time.
In the first place, there have been a series of mass struggles of successive austerity plans imposed by the bourgeoisie, including a national general strike in
There was recently a general strike by municipal workers in Liege, one of the main cities in the French-speaking part of the country.
All these strikes have been defeated as a result of the capitulationist maneuvers of the union leaderships.
than its neighbors.
Moreover, the new austerity package included measures that hit all workers, such as increases in deductions for social security benefits, and a cut in pensions for early retirees. In fact, early retirement has been encouraged as a means of dealing with unemployment, which is nearing 15%, the highest rate of any of the developed countries of continental West Europe, although the Danish rate is
HESITATIONS
The spontaneous strikes tended to falter over the weekend of September 10-11. Andersen explained:
"I came to work at 10:00 p.m. [on Friday, September 9]. asked me if the strike should be continu-
They were hesitating because three sanctions following a solidarity action with comrades laid off in Ottignies. People didn't want to stop work without
I met officials in the corThey still had not given any call for a strike but they took me with them to shut down the stations in Tamines and Chatelineau. People like that are close to the ranks but under the pressure of the apparatus. I came back at about 3:00 a.m. and explained that the movement was spreading. Then people left. Saturday and Sunday, the movement did official call, » because people wanted an
La Gauche asked Andersen why the strike had spread so quickly to the bus and tram drivers, in particular since they had waged a long unsuccessful strike in November 1982. He said:
"At the beginning they were cautious because they knew that a good part of the apparatus was against the railway workers strike. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I watched what happened on the
"Monday evening I got a favorable response to the strike from some Brussels leaders. Then on Tuesday evening, I said to myself, 'Now's the time.' I asked the delegates at seven depots to test the
mood. They asked the people who came in at 4:30 a.m. to hold a work stoppage until 8:00 so that we could hold a general assembly with those coming in later...At 8:00 the assembly voted for a strike."
AN AVALANCHE STARTS
The determination of the railway workers was decisive in the continuation and spread of the strike. On Monday, September 12, a stormy assembly of 700 striking railroad workers in Charleroi demanded that the fight go on.
The railway strike spread to all of the Walloon country and then to Flanders. At this point, the union leadership gave the go-ahead to workers to strike.
Both the Catholic and Socialist transport unions announced that they would officially recognize the strike up until at least 10:00 p.m. on Friday, September
The CGSP called for a 24-hour national strike. The Catholic transport union, the SCCC, called for the postal, telephonetelegraph, and radio-TV workers to join the strike on Wednesday, September 14 The trade-union common front of tram and bus workers called for a plan of ac-
On Tuesday, September 13, the public workers union controlled by the rightist Liberal Party joined the strike. and trams stopped running in Brussels.
On Wednesday, two sections of the Cockerill Sambre steel plant in Liege went on strike. The National Committee of the Catholic public workers union, the CCSP, decided by a vote of 63 for, 7 against, and 12 abstentions to launch a general strike in the ministries, the parastate bodies, the municipalities and public transport.
By Thursday, September 15, all sectors of public workers were on strike.
On Monday, September 19, the CCSP joined the strike in Antwerp, which help-
THE COUNTRY BEGINS
A number of big factories began having to reduce or suspend operations due to lack of parts and materials. These included the Volkswagen factory in Brussels and the General Motors factory in
The operators of the locks on the canals were also on strike and the barges stopped running. coming paralyzed.
In the Charleroi region, the workers in the big factories that dominate the economic life of the region, Glaverbell, Caterpillar, ACEC and CDC joined the strike. An LRT/RAL leader in the area explained that these were not "solidarity strikes" because the "workers knew that the government is out to get them too and that this is a chance to fight back."
This attitude seemed to reflect the high level of consciousness among workers in the Charleroi area. But the idea that this was a chance for a general strike
Belgian organisations
Belgium is a bilingual country, all nationwide organizations have two names, one in French and one in Flemish. The following is an explanation of the initials used in this article.
LRT/RAL - Revolutionary Workers League, Belgian section of the
FGTB/ABVV - Belgian General
Confederation of Labor, the Social-
CSC - Confederation of Christian Trade Unions.
CGSP - General Confederation of Public Workers, affiliated to the FGTB
SCCC - Christian Confederation of
Communications and Cultural Workers. was clearly spreading. In a few days the Walloon country regional conference of the FTB adopted a position favoring a national general strike.
### WORKERS DEMOCRACY
Notably, the new upsurge in Charleroi was accompanied by a demand for more workers democracy, for more discussion, and for more involvement of the ranks.
I was struck by this attitude at an assembly of railway workers early in the morning of Friday, September 23.
There was an overwhelming vote for continuing the strike, hundreds for and only seven against. One of those who had a hesitating attitude felt obliged to explain himself. His remarks were not well
But the chair called for respecting workers democracy and then he was
I asked a local leader of the LRT/RAL about this insistance on workers democracy, which I did not see anyplace else.
"Well, there have been a lot of struggles and they have all been defeated. People want to know what went wrong. They want to be able to discuss things, take things into their own hands."
Charleroi was also where the largest street demonstration of strikers place, involving about 4,000 people on September 2. The LRT/RAL comrades explained that the action was largely spontaneous.
### ACTIVE MOBILIZATION
As the strike continued, however, need increased for street actions to back up the strikers.
In Antwerp, workers at the depot of MIVA, the city bus depot, told me that they thought the September 22 demonstration there persuaded units of the gendarmerie that had entered the city not to intervene against them. local police had joined in that demonstra-
There was a small group of scabs that kept up pressure on the picket line and threatened to create incidents when for one reason or another the line thinned
Antwerp was the major bridgehead of the strike in Flanders, which is traditionally less militant than the Walloon country and where the Catholic union predominates. Local transport and the port of Antwerp, the third largest in Europe, were firmly shut down.
The "backwardness of the Flemish" is the traditional alibi of the trade-union bureaucracy in the French-speaking part of the country.
retreat is the "fault of the Flemish," the Walloon bureaucrats say. But "this time they won't be able to blame the Flemings," Rene Andersen told me in Charleroi. "The whole coun try could see over TV that the port of Antwerp was shut down."
were extremely important in Antwerp. They were organized by an Action Committee that diabout 400 activists, the majority of them young teachers.
At the start of the strike about 80 percent of the picketers had been young teachers, a local LRT/RAL leader estimated. As the strike continued, however, the proportion dropped to about 60, as other sectors became more involved.
The LRT/RAL has recruited significantly among radicalized youth in the last period in the Antwerp area and they were in evidence on the picket lines.
The LRT/RAL played a central role in organizing the picket lines and the Action Committee. Antwerp was one of the few places where it was possible to or ganize a strike action committee within the framework of the union movement.
No such committee existed in Charleroi. But this city is also entirely proletarian and dominated by a few big plants as well as by the transport workers.
In Liege, the LRT/RAL comrades told me, there are informal action groups but no formal structure recognized by the
The Antwerp Action Committee was organized at first informally. But once it showed what it could do, the organizers went to the union leaders and persuaded them to give official backing
The Action Committee became an effective mobilizing instrument. packed meeting of union activists late in the evening of September 22, I saw hundreds of people rush out to join a picket line at a local railway station after the About 400 people were involved contin-
The Thursday night assembly of union activists in Antwerp also voted unanimously for the continuation of the strike "This militancy is something new here in Flanders," an LRT/RAL leader active in organizing the pickets told me.
LIEGE: FIRE IN THE ASHES
One of the hardest sections of lic workers to mobilize were the
city workers, who suffered a severe defeat in the
Their pay was not docked immediately but they fear the loss of up to half their wages late this fall when the strike days are deducted.
In the case of the Liege city workers also, the pickets were decisive.
workers are not ready to strike," LRT/RAL city worker activists
"But they are not prepared to cross a picket line either."
The fact is that in the past the Belgian labor movement forced the acceptance of a law that guarantees that public workers will not have to cross a picket line. Workers could simply go to the city hall, sign in, and say that they were prevented from working by a picket line. In this way, they did not lose any money and the government did not get any work
The problem was that since the city workers were not formally on strike, they were not putting their moral weight behind the action.
"The help of the teachers and the railway workers is crucial on the picket lines now," Denise Comanne said, "because we are still very weak among the city workers." Denise is a city office worker.
She explained that the "assemblies of city workers where the strike was discussed were very rough. About 80% of the workers were not ready to go back on strike so quickly after our defeat this
It was only a small nucleus that were ready."
Renny Boiten, a heating plant install-
"I am a pretty militant worker. So, I saw the strike as a chance. struck for seven weeks demanding a general strike of all workers, and now finally this is the beginning of what we were fighting for. We have to be in it. But most workers don't see it that way at first. The tram workers say, 'We struck last October, and you weren't with us. So, we're not going out with you now? That sort of thing has to stop. vicious circle. We all have to go out once
Boiten explained that the lack of democracy in the union created all sorts
"In my sector we have not had a single
The workers showed up for and there was a chain of union officials to stop them from going in.
understand why should strike. The reaction was very
The other problem was that the workers were sick of half-way actions. lot of workers tell " Boiten said, "Ill be with you if it's a general strike, if they go all out to dump this govern-
But we don't want to be played with the way we were during the sevenweek strike this summer."
1E DEMAND FOR BRINGIN OWN THE GOVERNMEN
Eric Toussaint, a delegate in the Liege said the general mood among the strikers seemed to be for a general strike to bring down the govern-
Two postal union delegates I talked to at the Liege central post office con-
"This is a vicious government. People want to get rid of it, or at least to force them to put the Liberals
In both Liege and Charleroi, the trade-union and political militants I talked to stressed that the Socialist Party had no organization and no credibility in the
SP speakers had the record of Socialist Party government thrown at them.
Unionists belonging to the Communist Party are the largest left opposition grouping in the workers organizations. But the Communist Party does not put forward any political line that can unite
It is also opposed to a call for a general strike to bring left centrist Belgian Workers Parti du Travail/Parti van de Arbeid, puts forward an ultraleft line as regards union action away from a call for bringing down the
The LRT/RAL proposes a government of the workers parties put in by a general strike and responsible to the organized strike has proved a good occasion for this proposal for a political
Boiten said that it was clear that the trade-union leaders that were also part of the Socialist Party leadership did not want to force out the government but just to use the strike as a bargaining chip.
DISORDERLY ADVANCE, DISORDERLY RETREAT
The lack of centralized and decisive leadership of the strike resulted in an uneven and shifting pattern.
Although the railroad workers had launched the action in Liege, Toussaint explained, they were also the first section of workers that showed signs of faltering, because they feared being left in the lurch.
In the middle of the second week of the strike, the union leaderships agreed to with the government, made a proposal including some minor
This opened the way for the more conservative leaderships to begin to pull back.
Following the withdrawal of the Liberal Party-controlled union, the Catholic Confederation of Labor rescinded its strike call on Wednesday, September 21. The sort of domino effect that began the strike threatened to go into reverse.
The Catholic rank and file and various individual Catholic unions remained strongly in support of the strike, as the September 22 meeting in Antwerp point-
That was particularly true in the Walloon part of the country, where there was little apparent difference in the attitude of the Catholic and Socialist
But in the Catholic union confederation, the national center controls all the money, unlike the Socialist union confederation, where each member union controls its own finances.
THE STAGE IS SET FOR SELL OUT
Eric Toussaint said that it appeared that the FGTB union leaderships were preparing the way for ending the strike on Friday. They had called an enlarged National Council meeting first.
For hundreds of thousands of union members in Liege, Toussaint said, there were only six members of this "So, it represents the real bureaucracy. Only after the National Council meeting, would a special congress of the confederation be convened.
"If they had wanted the strike to continue, the schedule would have been the around," Toussaint "They would have called congress first."
This is the way Le Peuple, the Charleroi daily supported jointly by the SP and the FGTB, reported the outcome of the National Council meeting on Friday:
"The representatives faced an initial choice - to accept or not the proposal by the Walloon regional conference for a 48-hour general strike on Monday and
This option was rejected by 55% of those voting
"The second proposition was a sort of life raft, a strike Monday followed by an evaluation of the meeting scheduled for that day with the government. posal was rejected by a very strong majority, in which the supporters of firm action joined with the moderates. The vote of rejection was very badly taken by the railway workers, who left the hall and voted to resume work at 10:00 p.m. on
TOWARDS A NEW UNION LEADERSHIP?
However, it remained to be seen what the reaction of the rank and file would be. One of the CGSP postal union delegates I talked to in Liege on Friday, who was far from radical, said: call off this strike without a victory, I don't know how we are going to explain it to our troops."
There has been no lack of militancy, determination to fight, even of desperaunionists whose standard of living has been being cut to ribbons by austerity. They have been betrayed again and again by their leader-
And they have realized this in-
The problem is that there has been absolutely no organized opposition in the unions that the ranks could turn to. A new opposition will have to be forged out of repeated spontaneous explosions. The public workers general strike is the most advanced experience of this type in the present period. It gives an indication of how rapidly a militant opposition may develop when the conditions are ripe.