{"id":20993,"date":"2025-01-15T13:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T13:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uit-ci.org\/?p=20993"},"modified":"2025-02-27T14:20:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T14:20:25","slug":"belgium-general-strike-and-protests-against-the-pension-reform-and-social-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/2025\/01\/15\/belgium-general-strike-and-protests-against-the-pension-reform-and-social-cuts\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Belgium: General strike and protests against the pension reform and social cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"adn ads\" data-message-id=\"#msg-f:1825133806103661352\" data-legacy-message-id=\"19542d86d45d8b28\">\n<div class=\"gs\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<div id=\":1s\" class=\"ii gt\">\n<div id=\":1r\" class=\"a3s aiL \">\n<div class=\"gmail_quote\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0More than 100,000 people marched across Belgium yesterday as part of the general strike against the pension reform. In the capital Brussels alone, more than 30,000 are reported to have marched.<\/div>\n<p>The general strike was called by the three largest trade unions in the country: the\u00a0<i>Confederation of Christian Trade Unions<\/i>, the\u00a0<i>General Federation of Labour of Belgium<\/i>\u00a0and the\u00a0<i>General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium<\/i>.<br \/>\nThe mobilisation in the capital started from Place de l&#8217;Albertine to the central train station in Brussels, and has been joined by rubbish workers, firefighters, train operators, airport workers, teachers and others in the public sector.<br \/>\nThe possible coalition government (known as the Arizona coalition), formed in principle by nationalists, social democrats, liberals and the centre-right, which 7 months on from legislative elections, has not managed to form the new executive, has already announced a pension reform project, which would entail the elimination of various social benefits such as wage freezes, longer working hours, more precarious contracts, cuts to public services and lower pensions.<br \/>\nAccording to trade union leaders, special regimes enjoyed by railway workers, police and military personnel, which allow them to retire earlier, would be in danger of disappearing, meaning that they would have to work much longer to have the same rights.<br \/>\nAccess to the minimum pension would also be at risk, as well as the amount, which would particularly affect women.<br \/>\nThe legal retirement age in Belgium was raised from 65 to 66 on January\u00a01st 2025. Today it takes 45 years of career to retire with a full pension. It is planned to rise to 67 from 2030. The Arizona coalition wants to save 3 billion euros a year in pensions.<br \/>\nThe national strike day has been marked by transport stoppages, which have affected Belgium&#8217;s airports and has meant that since midday there have been no departures from Charleroi airport, south of the capital. The flight stoppage has affected 40%\u00a0of flights at Brussels International Airport.<br \/>\nIn the capital, rubbish collection was another sector where strikers were able to extend the stoppages. Tens of thousands of teachers have also joined the strike and joined the protests.<\/p>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0According to trade union reports, the reform will reduce access to minimum pensions by introducing additional barriers, particularly for women working part-time or those with incomplete careers. It would also significantly reduce pension benefits for civil servants, reducing pensions.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0More than 100,000 people marched across Belgium yesterday as part of the general strike against the pension reform. In the capital Brussels alone, more than 30,000 are reported to have marched. The general strike was called by the three largest trade unions in the country: the\u00a0Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, the\u00a0General Federation of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1002],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20994,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20993\/revisions\/20994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}