Belgium -Union confederations dissatisfied with budget accord -November 28, 2011

Although there has been reached, after 1.5 year of talks, a budget accord between the six potential coalition partners at federal political level, the three major union confederations are dissatisfied with the outcomes. Both president Marc Leemans of ACV/CSC and his colleague Rudy de Leeuw of ABVV/FGTB state that the package is not oriented at all towards growth, that the taxation burden for the common people will go up drastically and that the division of the burden is anyway quite unequal. Both chairpersons emphasize that unemployment benefits, possibilities for early retreat and bridge pension arrangements will be heavily hit. Jointly with the third confederation, ACLVB/CGSLB, they have planned a major demonstration on 2 December in Brussels. Adaptation of the accord towards union demands will be a central demand.

Dutch: http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/5036/Wetstraat/article/detail/1354091/2011/11/27 ... 
http://www.abvv.be/web/guest/actions-nl/-/action/467385/&p_l_id=10188
http://www.acv-online.be/Images/Pamflet%20betoging%202-12-NL_tcm9-258558.pdf  

French: http://www.csc-en-ligne.be/Images/Pamflet%20betoging%202-12-FR_tcm22-258533.pdf 

 

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. or the communications officer of the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.