Balance sheet of the general strike of Belgian public workers the strike to private industry began to be felt, especially in the Walloon country.
The strike in the public services did not run out of steam. It was halted at the moment when the workers in the public services and private industry should have gotten the call for an alltrades general strike from the FGTB and
The general strike of public workers in Belgium started with a spontaneous walkout by four train drivers in Charleroi on September 9. to all the public workers and forced the unions concerned to issue formal strike calls. The public services were shut down, including transport and post, and the country ground to a halt. egan to have problems because of lack of transport, and some managements ordere 'he auestion of a general strike of all workers began to be posed. Many big plant partial or complete shutdowns as a result. In the Walloon industrial center of Charlroi, strikes began to develop in private industry as well.
1 particularly severe austerity drive has been underway in Belgium for some time he Belgian economy is one of the weakest of the small north European imperialis national economies in Europe, in the same class as Denmark. Unemployment has been hit hard, running over 13 percent.
The dismantling of the welfare state and the drastic decline in the standard of living has aroused an increasing desperation among the Belgian working class. have been repeated big strike movements, with a national general strike last Febru-
All these actions, however, have been undermined by union leaderships that are unprepared to put up a decisive fight against the bosses and the government. perience explains how a walkout by four train drivers could ignite a strike that paralyzed the country and came close to touching off a national general strike.
The mood of the workers this time was that they wanted a showdown. Day by day, the workers assemblies voted overwhelmingly to continue the strike, right up
But on Friday, September 23, the national leadership of the FGTB (Belgian General Confederation of Labor, the SP-dominated union federation) came out for a return to work. The Catholic and Liberal Party unions had withdrawn earlier, so this decision by the FTB pulled the rug out from under the strikers.
The Catholic confederation predominates in Flanders, and the Walloon country. Historically, the traditions of class struggle in the Walloon country are stronger, while the Flemish workers have remained politically tied to the bourgeois Catholic party, the PSC/CVP. The leadership of the Catholic union federation, the CSC, is correspondingly more conservative. tism of the Flemish is also often used as an excuse by reformist and class-collaborationist leaders in the Walloon country.
Because of the national division of Belgium and linguistic sensitivities, every organization has two names, one French and the other Flemish, and sometimes they are not exact equivalents. Both the Catholic and SP-dominated confederations are divided along national lines, although the Catholic one predominates in Flanders and the FTB in the Walloon country.
The following two articles are from the October 7 issue of La Gauche, the French language paper of the Belgian section of the (Ligue Revolutionnaire des Travailleurs/Revolutionaire Arbeidersliga — Revolutionary Workers League). They represent respectively the LRT/RAL's balance sheet of the September 9-23 general strike of public workers and of the work of the Fourth
Following the defeat of the Liege city workers, the Martens-Gol government
Within a few days, it spread
FGTB in the
However, the traditional conserva-
Fourth International, the RT/RAL thought that they could launch a genattack on public workers. They did this the CSC (respectively, the Socialist and Catholic labor confederations).
September 22, two trade-union organizations withdrew from the strike — the liberal [right-wing] union and the Catholic Confederation of Public Workers (CCSP). This desertion created a certain wavering at the end of the
On Friday, September 23, the National Committee of the FGTB made no decision and simply left the strikers hanging at a crucial moment. The Walloon Interregional Committee of the FGTB (1) waited 11 days before making a proposal for extending the strike to private indus-
CATHOLIC UNION RANKS
By agreeing to negotiations with the government, the leaderships of the public service unions assumed a grave sponsibility. The Catholic unions ended up following the line of the CSC leadership, which was to do anything to save the government [in which the Catholic party is involved].
However, it has to be noted that while the CCSP accepted the accord reached on Wednesday, September 21, and called its members back to work, the Catholic railway workers waited until noon on Friday before deciding to go back. The CSC has probably never run into so much opposition from its ranks.
For its part, the CGSP [the FGTB public workers federation] by failing to
This is the FTB leadership for the WalToward the end of the publie workers general strike, it issued a recommenda all-trades general strike, including private industry.
clearly reject the accord on Wednesday morning and "presenting" it to its membership, created doubt about what the objectives of the strike were. In taking this course of action, the national leadership of the CGSP gave the CSC a chance to cover up the fact that it was changing the aims of the strike and going to the aid of the government.
The trades councils' leaderships and the leaderships of the public workers unions in particular then sold out an exemplary struggle against a bad accord In fact, even if the government made concessions on important points such as pensions, bonuses, and the biannual raises, it also - leaving the measures that affect all working people - cut 8.5 billion francs [52 Belgian francs equal 1 US dollar] from the appropriations for publie workers.
AN EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITY MISSED
Over and above the disappointing result of the public workers strike, the entire workers movement missed an exceptional opportunity. The leaders of the FGTB, the CSC, and Socialist Party and the Catholic Workers Movement (2) all attacked the policy of Martens-Gol. They all said if the government doesn't change its policy, it should get out."
Well, the government has not changed its policy, but these leaderships did not dare throw it out. And they did not attempt this for one fundamental reason — they have no alternative to the austerity both FGTB and the CSC, both the SP and the Catholic Workers Movement start from the same principle that "sacrifices are unavoidable." Their policies aim at nothing more than assuring that these sacrifices are "shared more evenly."
During this conflict, these organizations failed to point to the ones really responsible for the crisis — the banks, the trusts, and the bosses. They offered no political alternative for making these people pay for the crisis.
Thus, right in the middle of the strike, Spitaels announced that "painful measures would have to be taken even if the SP were in power." the SP aspires to nothing more than administering austerity. It is not interested in meeting the workers demands.
WORKERS LEARN NEED TO FIGHT
FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF GOVERNMENT
It is also because the union organizado not clearly reject the need for sacrifices that they have not really taken on the government. But the public workers strike showed that hundreds of thousands of workers think that there is no way to stop the austerity policy without taking on the government as such.
Even if such a mobilization makes the government and the bosses a bit more cautious, they are not likely to depart
ITGANG from the objective that they have set. And that is. to cut the direct and indirect wages of the workers in this country. The results of the general negotiations between the government and the unions shows that the unions got nothing. If, the next time the workers movement engages in a large-scale action, it does not aim for forcing the government out of office, we will risk another defeat.
Broad strata of workers today realize that austerity is not going to solve anything for them and so they are not going to accept any new sacrifices.
Along with this, the strike demonstrated another important point. possible to achieve unity between the Flemish and Walloons. •The unity that developed went deep. This time Flanders not only "followed," as it has on many other occasions. In any cases, it was in the vanguard. This was true for example in Antwerp, where the level of organization was the highest in the coun-
Through this strike, the 800,000 pubparalyzed a number of vital functions. By so doing they spread the
"everybody out" for a strike that will "last." has certainly made an impact on a lot of workers, including in private industry.
THE GENERAL STRIKE
The idea of a test of strength that could be a general strike has beome some-
All these lessons go against the notion of a "Walloon country retreat" proposed by the SP and the FGTB, and they will not be forgotten
In the trade-union organizations them-
Picket line at a Belgian railway station (DR) selves, the strike is going to leave a deep
Besides the split between the two communities, the FGTB is going to be confronted with a split between public and private sector workers.
The FGTB's inability to take a decision to broaden the strike is going to increase distrust of all the multitrade union structures and weaken this confederation's striking force.
In the CSC, several trade unions (clerks, railway workers, and engineering workers) have demonstrated their op position to the government and their reservations about the close ties exist between the CSC and the CVP. PSC (the Catholic party).
All these elements, combined with the distinctive fact that the unions are no longer managing to defend the jobs and conditions of the workers, are going to fire an intense debate within the unions leaderships, which are more and more out of their depth, will continue to grow.
To win the coming battles, things have to change in the union leaderships. fighting unionists, those who have led the struggle, who have the confidence of their fellow workers and represent the aspirations of the ranks, have to be put in the leadership of the unions.
A new trade-union leadership has to be forged that can take on the struggle against austerity and capitalism. Already in the union elections in the private sector, hundreds of militant delegates have been pushed forward. The same thing has to be done now in the public sector, at all levels of trade-union organization.
This is a political association created by Catholic trade unions in response to pressure from their ranks for class independence from the bourgeois Catholic party.
A POLITICAL
ALTERNATIVE FOR THE WORKERS
Throughout the strike, the LRT and its members, both in the public and private sectors, supported another sort of policy. We were convinced that only an anticapitalist alternative could offer the workers the perspective they needed to win. The main points of this alternative are the following;
- Reject all sacrifices. Moderation has not yet created a single job. Reestablish full cost-of-living increases. A 32 hour week with no cut in pay.
- Get the money where it is. Abolition of banking secrecy, tax assessment of all fortunes, no amnesty for tax evaders.
In order to get the crisis in hand, the power of the bosses has to be broken. Nationalization of the banks and holding companies, of the key sectors of the economy, without compensation and un-
[the public workers federation affiliated to the FGTB]. We consider this a valid plan. It states:
"We call for a government based on the mobilized workers united around a political platform, which make the economy serve the society....
"Such a government must represent all of labor and exclude all representatives
The SP and the Catholic Workers Movement should take a clear stand on
It is only with such a perspective that a "front of progressives" would take on real meaning and put an end to class collaboration with the Liberals and the Social Christians.
Such a change of policy would reprecome about on its own. To forge fighting workers unity, to advance an anticapitalist program, we need to build a new workers party. We need a genuinely socialist party that will pursue the workers interests and not places in the state
The LRT is dedicated to working to build such a party. Join the LRT and fight alongside its members in the plants, in the offices, and in the trade-union movement for a fundamentally different policy in this country.
Spitaels is both a leading SP politician and was a CatholicSP coalition that began the austerity drive.
der workers control.