BATAVIA wrote:Our Belgian COMPROMISE STRATEGY will kill us one day
The alternative is what?
A regime like in the PRC, where strikes are simply and outright forbidden, conditions of employment are unilaterally imposed and workers are tossed around like living robots?
If that were ever to be introduced, I bet you'd see overal conditions of employment in Belgium spiral down faster than a plane which has just lost a wing! Think about what that would do to the net income of a Belgian family and their buying power...
Somehow I don't think our economy would be better off.
In fact, I am pretty sure it would make the largest economic recession since WWII (-5%) which we are living today look like just a small dip!
It's really funny to see how so many people always fall over eachother to say how well they understand the concerns of whoever goes on strike, but always seem to think a strike is not an option and negociations should be held first, as if the unions have 'strike' as first recall item on their checklist for social discussions!
If you strike, you loose wage, so nobody is going to go on strike unless he or she feels the absolute need for it and sees talks (if any) are leading nowhere, something which is no surprise really, since it seems like today you have predominantly 2 types of employers:
-) those who simply say 'fuck off' to any demand
-) those who'd like to do it but don't dare and thus use talks as a way to stall on any decision
In an environment where the cost aspect has become the single most important determining factor to base managerial decisions on, the most efficient way for unions to get concessions from the employers, is to positively influence the cost aspect of their demands and whenever their demands have an inherently negative cost aspect attached to them, make sure that it is cheaper to accept the demand, than it is to reject it. A strike is a very efficient method to achieve this goal and is merely an application of a logic which subscribes in full to the lowest possible cost business model our employers have all adopted.
It is indeed sad that these days, the only way one can get some flexibility from the employers is by making them loose even more money through going on strike, but keep in mind that the lack of consideration for customers and stakeholders alike which a strike reveils does not come from the employees, but from the bean-counting employers. It's just that they want to keep in behind closed doors....
