Belgium’s new right-of-centre government says employment is its major issue as the country’s transport system ground to a strike-hit halt today (8 December) and ahead of Ford’s imminent shuttering of its Genk plant in ten days.
Ford’s decision to close Genk on the Eastern Belgian border with Germany, will see 4,300 direct job losses, as well as possibly thousands more in the supply chain, while the country is today in the grip of a huge transport strike against austerity measures.
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Reports are widely circulating not a single train is running in or near Brussels, that Zaventem Airport is severely hampered, while all Eurostar services to the Belgian capital are cancelled from Lille in North East France.
“Unemployment is the biggest concern of this government – it will be eventually judged by its achievement in this spirit,” a spokesman for vice Prime Minister, Kris Peeters, told just-auto from Belgium.
“The ideology behind it is we need to make our companies competitive again and make growth in our social system sustainable. If you don’t mange to do that, you are heading for trouble.
“It [strike] is of course worrisome – we take it very seriously but at the same time we are doing our utmost to get going with this social track. There is still some reluctance on the part of the unions to what has been altered.”
Today’s huge transport walkout could pale into insignificance however, compared to next Monday’s (15 December) national strike, that will see large parts of the country paralysed as unions organise mass action against what some see as unfair austerity measures.
One of Ford’s main unions, the socialist ABVV labour body, has been negotiating to find a settlement for its members, once the US manufacturer closes the factory doors and is heavily involved with the walkouts in Belgium.
“We are trying to mobilise everyone and everything,” ABVV regional president, Rohnny Champagne, told just-auto from Belgium. “It is a national strike [15 December] – the impact should be massive.
“There will be no transportation, no trains, no buses, very little public life and industry will stop. We will block roads, but we will not stay there for the whole day. We will travel around in the province to stop traffic and stop everything.”
The huge disruption has somewhat taken the spotlight off the huge closure of Ford’s factory, with rumours continuing to circulate surrounding potential buyers for part of the Genk operations, such as its stamping facility.
Speculation is centering on Punch Metals securing up to 200 press shop jobs at Genk, but Ford is declining to say if anything concrete has been agreed.
“While any next steps on the redevelopment of the Ford Genk site will be communicated by the Flanders Government, Ford and other stakeholders have been in discussions in past months with third-parties that have shown an interest in limited parts of the existing Ford Genk operation,” Ford said in a previous emailed statement to just-auto.
Punch confirmed it had submitted a proposal to the Flanders government, in whose Limburg region the Genk plant sits, which could see up to 200 stamping jobs saved at the factory.
