2023-06-04 05:09:59
Are we seeing a “turning point” for the right to strike in Belgium? In view of the survey carried out for the PODCAST “Le Tournant”, it seems so, for 4 reasons in particular.
A right with blurred contours
If the absence of precise markers in the law and the constitution for this “right to strike” in Belgium has long enabled the unions to defend a rather broad meaning of it, today, it is clear that the courts and tribunals delimit a fairly restrictive strike perimeter. When you read the latest orders prohibiting anyone from “obstructing” Delhaize stores, you think that even the holding of filter pickets is becoming difficult for them to organize.
A changing view of society
This evolution of case law is in phase with a societal evolution. In recent years we have seen, for example, that in the media (traditional and social) the strike is increasingly treated from the angle of its practical consequences (in terms of mobility, access to workplaces, circumvention possible…) and often leaves the substance of the claims that led to the action in the background.
A flustered consultation model
The Belgian model of social consultation is itself seized up. The “fruits of growth” that employers and unions shared in the past are now increasingly meager.
What is more, competition between States, induced by the single European market, has led to an increasingly strict corseting of wages which now makes it very complicated to conclude inter-professional agreements between representatives of employers and workers. This is what Jean Faniel, director of CRISP, says: “Governments, in particular the Michel government in 2017, have reduced the margin for wage increases so much that it is a bit like putting employers in an armchair and the unions on a stool with one leg missing. “
A problem of scale
Today there is a real difference in scale between the large multinational companies and the systems of social consultation which are still built on a State scale. This also changes the nature of the balance of power: a global group can much more easily “shut up” in the face of strike actions that only concern its establishments in a single country. We see it at Ahold-Delhaize.
For all these reasons, whether we deplore it or whether we rejoice in it, we cannot deny that the ability of the unions to weigh in the showdown between capital and labor is today diminished… And that this changes the balance of our Belgian-style social democracy.
And to dig into all this in detail, the latest episode of “The Turning Point” is online. On audio and on all your download platforms.
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