orkers pay
The question of armed struggle is a very delicate one.
Despite all the problems, we have defended the right of a for city bankruptcy radical national current to resort to violence.
We think that that cannot be denied in the case of an oppressed nationality, especially when there is mass support for it.
We are not in favor of the sort of
The economic crisis in Belgium is starkly illustrated by the fate of the employees armed struggle the radical nationalists are of the city of Liege in the Walloon country, the French-speaking part of Belgium.
carrying out, however. One reason is
In April the city council declared itself bankrupt and stopped paying salaries to strategic. Although there is a mass curthe 17,000 city employees, teachers, public service workers, etc.
rent that supports this, what it in fact
The extent of the crisis is also pointed up by the fact that the government of involves is the activity of a small group
Wilfried Martens has had to ask for 'special powers' to cope with it.
trying to substitute itself for the masses, employees have been taking action since April, and are now on an to take armed struggle out of the hands indefinite general strike. Workers at the nearby Cockerill Sambre steel mill are also of the working class.
The radical nation-
The following article from the July 1 issue of La Gauche, paper of the Belgian alists see ETA as the embryo of the fusection of the Fourth International, gives an account of the combativity of the ture Basque national liberation army. We workers and their attempts to build unity with the steel workers.
do not share this veiw of an army growing out of an armed organization.
not a third world country, where the conditions might favor guerrilla warfare.
Secondly, we are against this type of armed struggle for tactical reasons, among other things because it leads to equating the PSOE and the state and creates confusion in the minds of the workers themselves about violence and the state.
We are in favor of self-defense. In fact, in Euzkadi, there have been experiences of mass self-defense growing out of strikes and community mobilizations, in which the LKI has participated.
Nonetheless, the radical nationalists regard our proposals as "moderate."
How do you find working with the radical nationalists in other respects?
Their nationalist outlook creates certain problems. Herri Batasuna, as its
"The People United," indicates, considers itself as a bloc of all the vital national forces, the bloc of the nation militant. So, they create their own mass front for every issue. They even tried to do this for women and the antinuclear struggle, but they failed there because of the strong concept of nonexclusive unity in those movements.
body who is not part of the family as an outsider, outside the struggling nation.
This also leads internationally to concept of blocs.
"we are the bloc of the Basque people. When we are ready to fight, who will help us. Only the
Soviet Union.
So we are in its camp."
On this basis Herri Batasuna took a very primitive Stalinist position toward Solidarnosc, for example, and attacked us in the most violent way.
social radicalism and identification with
Marxism, they are still very much limited by a nationalist framework. They have no understanding of broad political processes or of proletarian internationalism.
concept of internationalism is simply solidarity among fighting peoples, each fighting its own corner.
fighting to defend their jobs.
For several weeks the town of Liege has been on the verge of a general strike.
At the centre of the movement are the city employees and the steelworkers of
Cockerill Sambre. The city workers are on an indefinite strike against the loss of jobs and lowering of salaries. The government is trying to wear them down and prevent their struggle coming together with that of the steelworkers.
This is the reason why the decisions about Cockerill Sambre have been systematically put off. The local government group of the Socialist Party, the Walloon Rally, the Walloon People's Rally and the Ecologists, which had first of all repudiated the first financial rehabilitation plan accepted by the Burgomaster (mayor) Close have just reforged their unity at the expense of the workers.
The new proposal is as follows:
28,000 Belgian francs net (about £355 sterling) will be reduced by at least 3.5 percent. That amounts to about 1,000 BF, without taking into account the elimination of allowances for a diploma or for housing. This will concern about 1,500 employees. vast majority of city employees, those who earn between 28,000 and BF net, they will see their wages reduced by 10 to 15 per cent.
The PS-RW-RPW-Ecolo council that the Liege workers set up to stop the right have also chosen to stand with the prime minister, Martens, against the workers. But the city employees have not given up! As the report below demonstrates they remain extremely combative.
6.30 a.m. The dustbinmen have been requisitioned. So they have to be prevented from going
Several hundred workers are discussing in the courtyard: no question of going back to work if the Burgomaster does not lift the requisition morning everyone has received a letter from the king's prosecutors outlining the risks of not obeying the
Towards 8 a.m. the union official calls together the workers and the pickets to give them the orders for the day, 'today it would be better to make a pretence of obeying, to go out and work slowly, doing the popular neighbourhoods for ex-
There is muttering around the 'why go out when our condition hasn't been met?' Nothing is said clearly in the meeting, but there is passive resistance when they return to the courtyard. A first truck makes a pretence of leaving and stops right in the middle of the entrance so as not to 'crush' workmates. One does not know how it happens but a tyre bursts! Isn't that a shame? The last five trucks ready are blocked in the
During this period the army is out in collecting the rubbish in the smart areas...but three days later Edouard Close will lift the requisition order.
Monday June 20 5.15 a.m. Some hundred city employees leave for Cockerill. They are going to the LD steelworks, Tolamatil and Ferblatil, Jemeppe-Kessales, Valfil, the mechanical construction, or
Contacts are made as soon as the workers arrive. The atmosphere is friend-
We don't block their passage. simply discuss with them and propose that they demand a mass meeting where we can talk to them. Some officials accept that easily.
Then we explain that we have not come to beg for solidarity but to call on them to join a common struggle against a common enemy - the government and its special powers. In several places the workers decide to stop work for a few
Most of the time we have to be content with discussing in the courtyards. They understand the problem well. They also fought alone for six weeks last year! They know that they are soon going to
have to start another struggle and this time they want it to be extended to other sectors, and demonstrate this to their shop stewards rather aggressively.
But the stewards keep us hanging about and use all their authority to prevent or curtail the work stoppages. However, many of them have been militant activists. They know very well that the government will do everything it can to make the two workers bastions in the region fight separately. But there is a total blockage in the leadership of the metal-
If the delegates take the responsibility for stopping work in order to go with us to other factories they run the risk of receiving straightaway the letter of resignation that they signed blank the day they were nominated as stewards. Everybody still remembers what happened ten years ago when 30 stewards from the hot section at Cockerill continued a strike with niassive support from their base. were suspended by the federation, and after this seven of them, including some were sacked for grave misdeTHE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Tuesday June 21. We are beginning to feel our isolation. The two demonstrations at Brussels resolved nothing. They were not part of an overall plan of action against the government and its special powers. The pickets are still ready to fight but aren't given anything else to do but block the streets or the buildings, or collect the dustbins in the popular neighbourhoods. As flying pickets they could go out to call for the extension of the strike. The ALR [metalworkers union] leadership has had orders not to cross over into the territory of the CGSP [city
CSC-FTB THE SAME STRUGGLE
Since the beginning of the struggle red and green flags have hung together over Liege. Although the Nassogne congress decided by a majority of 52 per cent not to participate in the cross-sectoral demonstration of the CGSP, and despite the opinion of their official, Jacques Laurent, the CSC (Catholic-dominated union fedworkers in the town, unanimously save two abstentions, decided to be on the Brussels demonstration. had to produce makeshift badges and flags as the official banners had been locked away.
Everybody gathered on the square to hear that the council have reforged their
Joint union demonstration in Belgium (DR) unity at the cost of the workers - salary reductions of 12 to 19 per cent. Once more the city employees are confronted with the council as their enemy, and their anger breaks through. Dustbins are emptied on the town hall steps and windows broken. The Burgomaster is not
He will only restart a dialogue' happy. if the unions officially condemn the acts of the angry workers.
*Personally, I quite understand,' said a vegetable seller on his stall, 'they've been strung along for months without being paid.'
The workers know that their acts will change nothing but they are fed up. •
TO OUR READERS
So the city workers workers union].
have to stay cooped up in the town.
After this special 36 page issue of International Viewpoint we will be taking
This is the point at which Pierre Horne our summer break. The next issue of IV will be published on September 19, 1983.
head of the regional Walloon ALR spoke
We would like to apologise to our readers for the late arrival of the previous to the Liege workers called together by
This was a result of machine failure on the CGSP in the congress palace for the
Because of our continuing technical problems, first time. His first words gave the flavwere beyond our control, the production of this issue
'Comrades, you have
We hope that the increased size will compensate for this.
waged a formidable struggle...
We hope that these problems will be resolved when we restart production. In of the past tense provoked mounting disthe meantime we wish all those of you who will be having holidays during August a satisfaction in the room. The speaker was interrupted several times, and finally had to give up after seven minutes when the gathering rose as one person to sing the
'Internationale'.
"If I have understood you, the struggle continues,"
the chairperson of the
Andre meeting said, drawing applause.
obliged to adopt a fighting
Mordant, tone, insisted on the need for a cross-
Most contributors to sectoral struggle.
the debate emphasised the barrier to be lifted - the block on action from the
They demandmetalworkers leadership.
ed rank and file contact with Cockerill and the big ALR concentrations (Charleroi, Brussels, Antwerp).
scheduling delays at the printers. good time, and good reading!
### Correction
In our report of the practical solidarity given to the people of El Salvador by the council of Zug in
Switzerland (IV No 27,
1983) we underestimated the amount of their support.
The sum donated was 60,000 Swiss francs, i.e. 24,000 US dollars, ten times greater than we reported! Our apologies to the people of Zug and our readers.
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