FIGHTING EU AUSTERITY AND TTIP

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2015 :: RMTnews 18 R MT pledged solidarity with workers in Belgium that took part in a general strike last month against EU austerity policies and the proposed EU trade deal with the US known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Belgian unions are fighting government plans to bulldoze through measures which include raising the pension age, freezing wages and imposing massive public service cuts, attacks mirrored throughout the EU as the austerity and privatisation agenda rips through working class communities across Europe. Belgian union resistance kicked off with 100,000 people marching in Brussels. The latest general strike halted trains, buses and trams throughout Belgium, with high-speed trains to France, the Netherlands and Germany suspended, along with Eurostar services to London. Workers at steel firms, the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge, the post office and in education are planning further actions. Belgium has a long post-war tradition of collective bargaining between employers and workers. But the current coalition, made up of three right wing parties including the Christian Democrats, is pushing a right wing free-market agenda in line with EU rules. However a coalition of Belgian unions, green and left parties is opposing the latest decision to scrap plans for the annaul automatic cost-of-living raises next year. They also reject plans to raise the retirement age from 65 to 66 from 2025 and to 67 in 2030. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that comrades in Belgium were showing the way with general strike action that was a beacon to workers fighting austerity across the EU. “Across Europe it is pay, jobs, pensions and public services that are being battered by the EU-wide austerity agenda while the bankers, spivs and speculators who caused this crisis are back in business now with their snouts firmly in the trough. “RMT pledges solidarity to all workers and communities who have had the courage and determination to fight back,” he said. Other member states like Greece, Spain and Italy have also experienced increasingly volatile protests against EU- imposed structural adjustment programmes which includes transferring whole industries into the private sector. Spain’s new left wing party Podemos, which is attracting huge popular support, has said that the euro currency “was conceived as a real mouse trap” to enable right wing economic policies to be imposed. Italian trade union USB has also led large protests against recent anti-trade union measures being demanded by Europe's “troika”- the European Commission, the European NO TTIP: Belgian police stand next to an effigy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as demonstrators burn bales of hay in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, during a protest against EU austerity policies and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). NO EURO: Greek protesters carry anti EU banners, one reads in Greek "Down with the dictatorship" HEALTH CUTS: Italian healthcare workers protest in Rome against healthcare cuts included in the Italian government’s spending review decree. FIGHTING EU AUSTERITY AND TTIP