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On November 26, 1998
over one thousand workers and trade unionists demonstrated before the Law Courts
in Nivelles against the trial at which thirteen union representatives have been
charged with "armed rebellion, attacking police with bulldozers, attempting to
set fire to a police station, kidnapping two secret service agents, blows and
injuries to policemen, theft of material and disruption of traffic." Nivelles is
not in any third world country, but is in the very heart of Europe, just 25 kms
from the EU headquarters at Brussels. The last such trial in Belgium took place
over a hundred years back in 1886. Obviously, the working class and bourgeoisie
in Europe are set on a new path of conflict. The bourgeoisie is discarding
its old liberal face and resorting to fascist-like measures; the working class
is discarding its traitorous social democratic leadership and resorting to
militant struggles.
The immediate issue
was the closure of the steel plant, Forges of Clabecq which employed 1800
workers, in December 1996, when bankruptcy was declared. A factory that employed
6,500 workers in the 1970s was reduced to nothing with the siphoning out of its
profits by the management. In this struggle, the management, the official FGTB
Union and the local social-democratic government of Walloon were on one side;
the workers, led by a new leadership, were on the other. At the centre of the
struggle were the two main union leaders — Roberto D’Orazio and Silvio Marra.
They are the main accused. Both had a Marxist-Leninist background being involved
in the upsurge of the 1970s.
These two, working
systematically amongst the workers, built an active core of 50 within the
factory and by 1992 were able to expose and throw out the local
social-democratic leadership of the FGTB and take over the union. From that
moment, the Clabecq workers have been seen in every important social and
political movement in Belgium. They took part in teachers’ and students’
struggles, lent support to workers fighting factory closures and even offered
immediate help when shop stewards were threatened or dismissed. They created the
first "factory against racism" in Belgium by getting 75% of the personnel of the
factory to sign a petition demanding automatic Belgian nationality for any
immigrant who has resided for five years in the country.
Within Clabecq the
struggle exploded with its closure in December 1996. When the factory was
neglected by the owners, and the banks refused to pay the last wages, the
workers took out bulldozers from the factories and crossed the small township of
Clabecq-Tubize, smashing the windows of the banks. Wages were promptly paid.
Later when the workers stopped in front of the Town Hall to demand starting of
the factory, infuriated by a photographer secretly taking photographs from
within the police station the workers laid siege to the police station destroyed
the furniture and confiscated the camera.
With this, the
Clabecq union representatives took a nationwide campaign planning a ‘March for
Jobs’. On February 2, 1997, Belgium witnessed an unprecedented event in its
recent working class history, when 70,000 people demonstrated for jobs in the
streets of Clabecq. Many factory-level union representatives and even a part of
the union officialdom responded to the call of Clabecq. It was then that
Roberto took the initiative to set up the ‘Movement for Union Renewal’ (MRS).
Assisted by the Workers Party of Belgium, the MRS drew up a document which
exposed the social democratic leadership entrenched in the unions and called for
the return to class struggle and socialism. Roberto grew from a local leader of
Clabecq to become a nationwide leader of the Belgian working class.
With no response from
the management, in end March, 1997 the workers of Clabecq once again took out
the bulldozers. When they began a road block of the Brussels-Paris highway, the
police attacked the demonstration using trucks and water cannons. The workers
retaliated, utilising bulldozers they destroyed some of the police trucks and
neutralised the water cannons. The police were forced to retreat. Finally, the
police cleared the highway using tear gas. A month later, the union
representatives organised a more political procession aimed at exposing the
collaborationist trade union leadership. At the "March against the Liars" over
12,000 people shouted slogans against the traitorous social-democrats.
The fruits of this
struggle led to the re-starting of the company under a new (Italian) management
but with only 800 workers. In a deal struck over the heads of the actual union
representatives the social-democrats systematically kept out all union
activists. But with this, the movement has not been suppressed. In fact it has
grown from the confines of Clabecq to entire Belgium. On October 25, 1998 the
MRS organised a nationwide demonstration of 5000 workers and trade union
activists.
Meanwhile, the 13
workers face stiff jail sentences and huge fines with the government having
unearthed a draconian anti-working class law of 1887. The accused, of course,
have two alternatives — either to go jail or go underground and build a more
powerful working-class movement.
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