Belgian Workers' Mood Turns Angry
Along with Britain, Belgium has the deepest economic crisis in the north of Europe. At present it has the highest unemployment rate in the Common Market.
The tensions between the capitalist rulers determined to impose draconian austerity and economic restructuring and the workers have been mounting sharply. The stage for a new confrontation was set when a government composed only of representatives of the capitalist parties was formed after the November 1981 elections.
The twenty-four-hour general strike of February 8 was a dramatic explosion of working-class anger coming after a long period of setbacks for working people.
Once the lid was off, it was not easy to get it back on.
On February 15, the Walloon steelworkers spontaneously resumed strike action. This was accompanied by some very sharp actions to stop trains, reminiscent of certain aspects of the general strike of 1960-61.
Belgian Strikers Stop Train (DR)
The steelworkers were protesting against the Martens government's abandonment of the plan to bail out the steel industry in
Liege and Charleroi.
Confronted with this spontaneous reaction of the workers and the breadth of the attack on the workers' standard of living involved in the conservative government's austerity policy, the Social Democratic union confederation, the FGTB, has decided to resume national actions. But these are to be conducted in a still more moderate and limited way than its previous actions. They will be revolving strikes, five days of twenty-four-hour regional strikes extending from March 9 to March 25.
The following article outlines the lessons of the February 8 general strike.
"The government will not draw any tactical conclusions from this action, " the Belgian premier, Martens, declared on the eve of the February 8 general strike.
This comment is characteristic of the new all-bourgeois government. Its first act was to demand special powers (the right of the government to legislate by decree
for a year), so that it could "implement an emergency program to revive the Belgian economy."
The "breakdown" of the functioning of parliament resulting from the recent elections had prompted the bourgeoisie to shift the focus of political life away from the National Assembly toward direct confrontation with the workers in the factories.
The fifth Martens government in office now is far from strong. It can survive only if it can retain the support of the Catholic trade-union confederation. Thus, while this administration has chosen to confront the workers more directly, it is obliged at the same time to try to maneuver to divide them.
So, at the end of January when the government asked for special powers, it did not specify exactly what would be included in its decree-laws. Of course, nobody was in the dark about the general content. Nonetheless, Martens' reticence paid off. It enabled the most right-wing currents in the CSC to call for taking a wait-andsee attitude.
As a result the Catholic union decided to continue its discussions with the government, despite the flexible and cooperative attitude taken toward it by the Social Democrat-dominated union. The FGTB wanted to respond immediately to the government's move but at the same time to maintain a common front with the CSC.
The position adopted by the national leadership of the CSC did not go over well with the confederation's member bodies in the Walloon country. All of them decided to defy the directives of their national leadership (Flemish in its majority) and go on strike together with the FGTB.
The kickoff was given on February 7 by the railway workers. In less than fifteen minutes, thanks to the unity in action between the FGTB and the CSC, the entire rail network in the Walloon country was paralyzed.
In Brussels and to a lesser degree in Flanders disruptions grew that varied in seriousness from locality to locality.
In the Walloon country, the strike was almost totally effective. But in general there were only token pickets and few street demonstrations. In Charleroi on February 4 militant workers put forward a proposal calling for such actions, but the bureaucracy blocked it. 4
Belgian Workers in Militant Street Demonstration (DR)
The strike was effective in the industrial belt of Brussels, where a de facto united front of the two confederations emerged.
In Flanders, where the CSC has a clear majority, the workers affiliated with the Catholic union remained essentially under the control of the apparatus. Nonetheless, the FTB managed to largely paralyze the port of Antwerp (the public workers were key to this.) In several plants, CSC workers did not "insist" over much when they found their way blocked by pickets who showed some "firmness."
In the industrial area of Ghent, about 80% of the workers at the big Sidmar steel factory struck, despite the fact that the CSC is in the majority there.
At Texaco, the strike was total. The Langerbrugge shipyards were shut down. The Limburg miners, who learned on the very eve of February 8 that their wages were going to be cut, went out, defying the explicit orders of a very rightwing CSC bureaucracy.
In the country as a whole, the strike was by no means a failure. To judgesthe action, three factors have to be taken into account:
--The strike was meant as a warning, not a fight to the finish. To convince the Flemish workers that is was worth their while to defy their leaders, it would have been necessary to build the strike as a decisive confrontation.
Subscribe to INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT
-- The FTB shop stewards often drew the conclusion from the foregoing fact that it was not worth endangering future prospects for trade-union unity by trying to force the CSC shop stewards and members to go along with a minority
In fact, significant movement toward unity has been developing for some time.
At the same time, the rightwing Flemish CSC leadership saw the opportunity offered by the FTB's uncertainty. It launched the accusation that the Social Democrat confederation was attempting a "political" strike.
--Thirdly, the workers upsurge is just beginning. The broad masses of workers have not yet got a concrete feel of how deep the government's antilabor measures are going to cut. The result is that there is not yet a real upsurge from below but rather a radicalization of union activists and shop stewards, especially in the FGTB.
Moreover, the workers (especially in the CSC) have not forgotten that the Belgian Socialist Party was in the first austerity government. They do not see a political alternative to fight for.
Nonetheless, extremely positive new factors emerged from this strike.
This time it was the Flemish CSC that was isolated in the context of the trade-union movement as a whole, not the Walloon FGTB, as was the case in 1960-61. This factor will weigh heavily when the government moves to attack the sliding scale of wages and social security.