BELGIUM: Workers protest against Volkswagen plans to end production of the best-selling Golf at its plant in Brussels and cut jobs there

Thousands of workers rallied outside Volkswagen's Brussels plant on Wednesday (November 22), pledging to continue industrial action to protest against the German car-maker's decision to cut thousands of jobs there. Volkswagen announced on Tuesday (November 22) it would stop building the best-selling Golf in Belgium and would reduce the 4,900 staff in Brussels to just 1,500 employees. "I am pregnant, we just bought a car, so the situation is a bit difficult with all this happening, but we will see," Vanessa Hinnebaut, 26, who has been working at the plant for three years said. Fabrizio Corleone, twenty three years old, who joined Volkswagen three years ago was angry and demanding compensation. "We have given our lives, our blood, we are exhausted by this work. We deserve to get something," Corleone said. Union officials used loudspeakers to rally the crowd and pledged to fight the decision. But they also asked them not to use violence to make their point and pleaded with them not to destroy the plant. "In the first place, I think we have to try on all levels, to mobilize the means, to try to turn back the decision that has been taken, to influence it. To make sure there is a future for this enterprise. And this happens on 2 levels. In the first place on a political level. I think everybody in Belgium has to take his responsibility, after the debacle of Renault, after the collapse of Sabena, after the 3000 redundancies at Fort Genk. This is another social drama in Belgium. It's time for the politicians to take responsibility and protect employment in this country," the union official said. News of the restructuring caused considerable emotion in Belgium with national television and radio running special bulletins and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt slamming the decision, describing it as being based on German national interests. The massive lay-offs echoed the outrage caused by French carmaker Renault in 1997 when it decided to close the Vilvoorde plant in the suburbs of Brussels, cutting about 3,100 jobs. Employees from surrounding firms as well as students came to give their support to the workers. The European Commission said on Wednesday it may be able to provide funds to assist the Belgian government in its efforts to workers . EU Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, said the Commission would look at ways of alleviating the blow for Volkswagen workers in Belgium. "In the Volkswagen restructuring case the task force will look at respect of community directives in force, particularly directives on consultations and representations of workers in such cases. Now that is very important of course. Often one can find many solutions by the social dialogue and perfectly reasonable solutions can be found. They will also look at mobilisations of funds including the European social funds for workers who are about to be laid off. So they are going to be discussing particular cases. I already mentioned the Rover example, more workers were involved there, and we did managed to get the support and it is possible to find good and effective solutions in this kind of case," said Spidla. Manufacturing jobs are scarce in Brussels where unemployment is running at over 20 percent. Volkswagen's cutbacks would leave major auto production only at Ford's plant in Genk, Volvo's in Ghent and the Opel plant in Antwerp. Volkswagen wants to cut up to 20,000 jobs in its German VW brand operations and lower West European output by 20 percent because the plants are not running at full capacity despite a rise in market share.

ITN Source | November 23, 2006

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