Belgian unions promised on Thursday, February 13, a force of force on the new government of the Flemish Conservative of Wever on Thursday, February 13, February 13, accused of planning drastic savings to the detriment of workers by pending social skills, including special retirement plans.
As a result of the call to strike: the planes will be nailed to the ground all day in the country, for lack of operational air traffic control, while administers and urban transport will work everywhere in slow motion. The railway workers of the SNCB, the public rail operator, will, on the other hand, ensure their service to converge as many people as possible to Brussels, where tens of thousands of people were expected in the morning for a national demonstration.
Accusations of “social brutality”
This Thursday marks the first day of union mobilization since the entry into office on February 3 of the Wever government, which inherits an country targeted by EU procedure for excessive deficit and intends to cut in public spending. “The journey that awaits us is not a health walk, it is rather of the order of a pass outside category,” launched last week before the deputies a Prime Minister adept at sports metaphors.
At the head of a coalition with the French -speaking right in the main ally, the Flemish presented the Belgian budgetary situation as “the worst of the Western world”. The public deficit is expected for 2024 to 4.6 % of GDP. He said he was convinced that his reforms will finally allow Belgium to “join the peloton of the healthy countries of Europe”.
Opposite, the accusations of “damage to rights”, “contempt”, even “social brutality” are one of the three major unions, whose appeal to demonstrate, prior to the coalition agreement, was Relayed by many organizations pointing to the tightening of asylum policy or claims on gender equality.
The strong male domination within the government – eleven men for four women – was notably seen as a negative signal by feminist associations. The League for Human Rights has castigated “an extreme-right of migration policies in Belgium”, in reference to the desire to restrict family reunification and access to social benefits for asylum seekers.
Pension and unemployment insurance reforms
In the Transfer of the Unions, joined by the French -speaking Socialist Party now in opposition, is also the limitation to two years of unemployment benefits. This flagship reform envisaged by the Wever coalition is seen in the south of the country as an “anti-Walloons” measure, Wallonia (South) being more struck by unemployment (7.5 % in the 3rd quarter 2024 against 4.3 % in Flanders).
Regarding pensions, teachers, police, firefighters and even soldiers have planned to mobilize against the project to remove the early starting possibilities from which they benefit today. With the reform of the calculation method, it is a question of defense of “working for several additional years for a significantly lower pension amount, it is unacceptable”, protested the defense branch of the free union of the public service (SLFP).
“Here we are talking about a whole series of professions that are at the service of the population 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We ask for respect and consideration for them and not a break in the social contract”, add to the ‘AFP Marie-Hélène SKA, Secretary General of the Christian Syndicate CSC.
She judges that automatic indexing of wages on inflation, a Belgian specificity preserved in the coalition agreement, is not sufficient to cope with the increase in the cost of living, particularly that of housing prices. “You have to be able to negotiate increases in real wages”. The union official predicts a mobilization in the street superior to that of January 13, when 30,000 people had demonstrated in Brussels for the defense of public services and pensions.