Brussels, the broken city

Public transport has been shut down in Brussels for four days now, a state of affairs we learned this morning will likely continue until Thursday. The entire situation has seemed to put people here in a more pronounced state of cynicism and disgust than normal, given both the circumstances of the incident which sparked the strike and the behaviour of the transit workers.

Early on Saturday morning, a city bus was involved in a traffic accident with a drunk driver. When a supervisor from Brussels’ public transport agency STIB came to investigate the accident and accused the car driver of being drunk, he became offended and called some friends to defend him. Those friends attacked the STIB supervisorand killed him.

In response, the STIB immediately shut down the network. This was done well before the facts of the incident were clear and before the employee had died (he didn’t die until later in the day at the hospital). Initial reports on the STIB’s web site said the trains weren’t running because of a “lightning strike”. Later it was a stabbing, until eventually it just said a “serious incident with dramatic consequences”.

The STIB employees said they wouldn’t go back to work until they had a meeting with the Belgian government about improving their safety on Monday night (this being Easter weekend, Monday was a public holiday). But last night, without providing much explanation, the STIB workers union said whatever had been offered them was not enough, and they would continue to stay home.

Protest over Ikea meatballs - welcome back to Absurdistan

I’m back in Brussels after spending the Christmas break home in the US. It was yet another trip where I spent most of the time regaling people with the insane stories of the strange place I now find myself living in. I’m pretty sure most of my American friends think I’m making this stuff up. I only wish.

After describing the impromptu general strike three days before Christmas which forced me to pay $500 to rebook my flight home, I moved on to describing to my friends the other union strikes I have witnessed since moving here. From the impromptu metro driver strike that was called after a driver claimed he was punched by a passenger (it turned out the driver had punched the passenger) to the October garbage strike in which the garbagemen went around town lighting the trash bags on fire and throwing them into the street, there’s plenty to describe. And let's not forget the time the taxi drivers blockaded Brussels Airport because an unlicensed taxi driver had been grazed by a bullet while he fled from police during a high-speed chase.

Today I learned about a whole new anecdote of insanity I could have described to my perplexed American friends. According to this story by Belgian news station RTL, the restaurant owners association in Belgium (Horeca) is busing homeless people to Ikea as a protest against their low meatball prices. When I first saw this story I assumed it had to be a joke. Clearly I’ve been in the US too long! Because I forgot that when you hear about something this absurd happening in Belgium, it’s probably true.

Anti-austerity protests shut down EU Quarter

As one of the last remaining Socialist governments in Europe collapses today, the left is taking to the streets in Brussels in what seems like a last-ditch effort to stop the massive austerity cuts to government spending taking place across Europe.

This morning I had the arduous task of trying to make my way to work through the massive union demonstrations by the European Trade Union Confederation that have closed off the EU Quarter. While some parts of the protests seemed relatively peaceful and good-natured, I could already observe danger signs. The security forces are wearing body armour, riot gear and gas masks. Youths with bandanas around their faces were everywhere, particularly on the side streets. Many of the older demonstrators are already intoxicated. I saw eggs being pelted at the windows of buildings on Rue de la Loi. Firecrackers were exploding all over the place (my suitcase got hit by one in fact!). My friend tells me a window in her office was smashed by a rock. It's going to be a fun day…

Another Day, Another Protest in France

Street protests are obviously not an unusual occurrence in France. The country is known for its love of demonstrations, and anybody who's lived in Paris for even a bit knows how frequently a strike or a march can throw you off your daily commute. But recent demonstrations in France have been something different entirely, and they're making the government increasingly nervous.

First there was January's one-day strike protesting the economic crisis, and now today another nation-wide strike has gone ahead, with unions claiming that three million people have taken part. 200 towns across the country have seen demonstrations, in which all eight of the country's big unions are demanding more protections for workers in the recession. And as unemployment has risen to two million, they are demanding more is spent in any rescue package on more unemployment benefits.

Benoit Hamon, a leftist rising star in the Socialist party, has been at the forefront of the protests, saying French President Sarkozy has been aggravating the crisis my making the "wrong economic and social choices."

The huge numbers these two strikes have attracted are causing the French government increasing worry. Sarkozy's popularity is perilously low, and the number of French people supporting the strikers is increasing. 74 percent of the French said today they support this week's protests. according to BVA. That's up from 69 percent in January. There is increasing talk of violent revolts this spring. And as evidenced by Hamon's increasingly prominent role, the hard left is gaining power and influence. Olivier Besancenot, a postman and the leader of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, has also been gaining popularity. A recent poll put him as the candidate who could pose the most viable threat to President Sarkozy.

And this is all happening in France, which analysts will be the least affected by the crisis among major European countries. All of this is making leaders across Europe increasingly concerned about a "spring of discontent."

'Permalancers' walk out in US

There was an interesting article in the New York Times today about the "permalancing" concept so popular in the US which I wrote about in my blog entry last week about the new EU protections for temp workers. "Permalancers" are people who work regular full-time hours, but are classified as "freelancers" by their company so they don't have to give them benefits.

Yesterday a large number of freelancers at MTV networks walked off the job to protest the company's cuts to healthcare benefits for the 'permalancers.' The permalancers already have an extreemly low level of healthcare coverage and the new cuts whittle them down to almost nothing.

I have a number of friends who work for MTV as 'freelancers,' one friend has worked there full time under thsi status for 4 years. But they're all tucked away with visions of sugar plums dancing in their head right now so I can't ask if they took part in the walkout. But what's really interesting about this is that it seems to be the first instance of people working udner this status undertaking collective action.

Incidentally, no MTV office in Europe has anything even resembling the "permalancers" system, I'm told.

Europe’s temps set for full benefits

It looks like the UK is going to lose the battle in Brussels over a new law that would give temporary workers the same rights as full-time staff.

A government source told The Times today that the issue is being linked in with the working-time directive restricting employees’ hours, and that given the fact that only four EU countries oppose the measure as a whole, Britain will be forced to accept the change under qualified-majority voting rules at a council of ministers meeting tomorrow.

Business interests in the UK have been vocally against the measure, saying that the law could force companies to get rid of as many as 250,000 jobs if they were forced to give full benefits to their temporary employees. However British unions have been busily debunking this argument and have been pressuring the government to drop its opposition to the changes.

Did Sarko win?

It was a long battle, but looks like French president Nicolas Sarkozy may have won this round in his war with the French left. Or did he?

The past weeks have seen a broad range of unions take to the streets to protest Sarkozy’s attempted reforms of the French social system. Public transit workers, civil servants, teachers, nurses, tobacco shop owners, air traffic controllers, fishermen and even opera stagehands have taken to organized action in attempts to resist the changes. Last week nearly half of all universities in France were shut down by protests, and there are reports that soon lawyers and judges are also going to have a walk out.

Now of course such things are not unusual in France, it’s a nation quite fond of revolutions and street protests. But there’s been something very different this time around, found notably in the lack of public support for the strikers. This feeling that the public was not behind them was probably what convinced many of the transit unions to vote to return to work late last week. Sarkozy, it seems, isn’t prepared to blink any time soon, and the unions may be starting to do so.

This current battle is just the first of many that will come in the coming year, and the French people knew it was coming. Sarkozy’s entire election campaign was centred around his central slogan, “work more to earn more,” and was filled with promises to break the power of the unions and drastically alter the French social system, which many people see as crippling France’s productivity, making it impossible for the country to compete in the modern global economy.

But no one said it would be easy, and history has not been on the capitalist reformers’ side. Former President Jacques Chirac tried to take on the transport workers and their pensions in 1995, only to be forced to surrender after three weeks of industrial action. But Nicolas Sarkozy is a very different man than Jacques Chirac. He has been very direct and clear about the radically new direction he plans to take France in, and the public voted him in (relatively narrowly), thereby giving him a mandate for change. So far, the public seems to be sticking by their vote.

How long will their patience last? We are still in the early days of this fight, and long protracted strikes like those seen in France in the 60’s and 70’s may be too much for the public to take. Clearly, its too early to tell who will win this fight, but it’s clear that both sides are prepared to dig in their heels. The question is, who will blink first?

Le divorce

Think you’re having a bad day? France’s new president Nicolas Sarkozy is having probably the worst week of his life, dealing concurrently with a massive public transit strike and a divorce. It looks like the end of his marriage has come at the same time as the end of his honeymoon period as president.

The presidential palace announced yesterday that Cécilia Sarkozy and Nicolas have divorced “by mutual consent” At the same time, Sarkozy is dealing with the first major challenge to his attempts to shake up the French social and economic system.

France has ground to a virtual standstill as public sector workers, mainly in transport and electricity, stage a massive strike over a proposed change to their special pension rights. Yesterday’s concurrent strike and divorce announcement is being called "Black Thursday" in France, and will probably come to be known as the day that Sarkozy lost control of the positive news agenda that he’s had since he became president five months ago. Sarkozy’s whole schtick has been his “ironman” persona, a strong, determined and energetic leader that is determined to strong-arm the changes that France desperately needs. But the collapse of his marriage so soon into his presidency, as well as speculation that the marriage actually ended before the election but Sarkozy has been keeping it a secret, will surely make him lose respect with the public.