What happened in 2015
The conviction on 23 November is an attack on the democratic right to collective action. The court in Liège sentenced 17 FGTB members, including current president Thierry Bodson, for participating in a road blockade in the context of a strike on 19 October 2015. This strike triggered a huge wave of anti-strike propaganda in the mainstream media. The 17 were sentenced to suspended prison terms and relatively heavy fines. They were convicted of “malicious obstruction of traffic”. Other charges were dropped.
The management of the hospital CHC Hermalle filed a manslaughter complaint immediately after the strike. A Danish tourist had not survived an operation. The hospital attributed this to the roadblock which prevented a doctor from getting to the hospital on time. The fact that the hospital had not provided a requisition of staff was not brought into the discussion, even though it is an obligation for hospitals to organize this. The fact that for profit medical care prevented the deployment of another doctor was also not an issue (and in the unlikely event that there was no other doctor in the region who could do the operation, this distressing shortcoming in health care was not even addressed). The fact that there are daily traffic jams in that area, whether there is a strike or not, was not mentioned either. There were daily traffic jams in the area because of a building site for the hospital. Moreover, on 19 October 2015, the strikers discovered that Indian workers living in containers on the construction site were being exploited.
The charge of responsibility for this death was dismissed. The charge of damage to the road surface was also dropped. In the end, only the roadblock itself remained. Presence on this roadblock was sufficient for a conviction for “malicious obstruction of traffic”. It is the same basis on which Antwerp FGTB president Bruno Verlaeckt was previously convicted following a strike in 2016. Class justice has no linguistic limits in Belgium when it comes to convict trade union activists…
Disconcerting development
In 1997, trade union militants from the steel factory Forges de Clabecq had also blocked a motorway, images of this blockade became a symbol of combative trade unionism. The court in Nivelles ruled that the demonstration was part of the exercise of the right to strike.
Since then, there has been a clear evolution of jurisprudence, especially after the extraordinary protest movement in the autumn of 2014. In that movement, the workers’ movement showed its strength. This action plan took place in three phases, each of which evolved into the next step. There was the largest trade union demonstration since 1986, followed by provincial strikes that culminated in the national general strike of 15 December, which brought the country to a standstill. The bosses were just as scared as the workers were enthusiastic. However, the trade union leaders decided not to launch a second action plan immediately to bring down the government. This allowed the government to get up and continue its right-wing attacks.
The bosses and their political representatives had learned a lesson. Since then, it has become much more common to take legal action to restrict the right to strike. The daily paper La Dernière Heure now writes that the French-speaking Liberals of MR are working on a law to ‘organise’ the right to strike. Until now there is no legal framework for the right to strike: it is a right obtained by the workers movement and therefore the workers decide on how to use it. In the liberal project of law blockades would no longer be permitted. If it depends on the Liberals and the bosses, there would also be other attacks on the trade unions and the right to strike. If this passes, strikes will only be allowed if no one can notice that a strike is going on.
A response adapted to the stakes is needed
The FGTB’s work interruptions on 1 December were the first general calls to action since the start of the pandemic, despite plenty of occasions in the past months, including the need of health measures in the workplaces or the unification of the fight against bosses who did not or laxly complied with health regulations. Just think of the brewery AB Inbev in Jupille near Liège, where a ten-day strike was necessary to take new measures after more than a dozen workers were infected with Covid-19. The national demonstration of the militant action group ‘Health in Action’ (La Santé en Lutte) on 13 September was also not used as an opportunity for national mobilisation by the trade unions. However, hardly anyone has yet to be convinced of the relevance of the demands of health personnel.
The new attack on the right to strike cannot just pass. It is not just about this one condemnation, but about the right to collective action of all of us. We need a serious national campaign against this political condemnation. We will not preserve the right to collective action just by talking about it or writing about it on social media: we must use our rights to preserve them. In order to get wider layers of workers involved in action, forthcoming actions need to be well prepared and built up. An information campaign aimed at mobilisations, including strikes, must not be delayed.
There is a new day for action on 10 December, International Human Rights Day. On that day, the FGTB will appeal against the conviction and there will be various actions against the attack on the right to strike. This could be a good starting point for an information campaign that builds towards widely supported actions of the entire workers’ movement.
These are uncertain times, but we can be sure of one thing: the bosses and their political puppets will try to make us bear the costs of the health crisis and the economic crisis. Defending our right to strike is an absolute priority and this defense will not happen with symbolic actions alone.
