Case of the Clabecq 13
Belgian steel workers fight courts, bosses
By Bob
Roeck,
Workers Party of Belgium
Edited by John Catalinotto
The Belgian Movement for Renewal of the Unions has called on
all progressive forces and unionists to be ready to mobilize
this spring regarding the Clabecq 13 case. The next hearing--on
procedural matters--will be before the Supreme Court in
Brussels on April 4.
The Clabecq defendants are 13 militant trade unionists who
face charges under a reactionary 1886 law for alleged
responsibility for "inciting violence" during a mass
demonstration of laid-off steel workers in 1996.
Their case has become a symbol of the fight against cuts in
social programs and restructuring, outsourcing and layoffs now
facing tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Belgian workers and
millions of workers across Europe. Similar drastic cutbacks
have already cut the living standards of blue-collar workers in
the United States.
The Clabecq 13 are also a symbol of rank-and-file militancy
and local militant union leadership in contrast to the national
leadership of the trade unions. This top leadership is close to
the Socialist Party, which is in the government, and has been
more for compromising workers' rights than for fighting to
defend them.
Clabecq is a small town 13 miles south of Europe's capital,
Brussels. The steel plant there employed 2,500 workers until
1996. Steel barons aimed at cutting 60,000 jobs in this
sector.
Faced with a shutdown of the plant, and refused aid by the
regional government, the Clabecq unionists started weekly
general assemblies in the plant. They announced they would
fight until the end to defend the factory and their jobs.
When the answer was still no as 1996 ended, and the factory
stopped paying workers' wages and benefits, they went to the
mayor of Clabecq. Suspecting the worst when they saw police
filming them, they asked to have the film. Denied the film,
they went to the local police station where a window was
smashed, along with those of some banks on the way.
This later became the basis for the charges against the
union leaders.
Later in 1997, some 70,000 people demonstrated in Clabecq to
support the unionists, something not seen for 50 years in
Belgium.
Clashes grew as the unpaid workers defended themselves with
bulldozers against the gendarmes, or National Guard, who
attacked with tear gas and water guns. Another mass rally of
15,000 rank-and-file unionists took place in Namur.
The struggle finally forced the factory to reopen, but on
condition that the core of "terrorists"--that is, the
militants--would be laid off. The Clabecq unionists maintained
their solidarity but accepted the startup of the factory,
voting for this proposal by 95 percent.
Afterwards, 500 of the core rank-and-file unionists were
refused entrance. They founded the Movement for Renewal of the
Unions, trying to focus the unions on fighting for workers'
needs.
The trial begins
In another struggle, the national union
leadership--advocating negotiations after an attempt to cut
jobs at a Renault auto plant--wound up with all jobs lost and
the factory shut down. The Renault workers saw that the Clabecq
workers had won more, but were under attack.
The National Guard then pressed charges against 11 workers
at Clabecq, one worker at Renault and one unemployed
27-year-old member of the Workers Party of Belgium--the Clabecq
13--under the 1886 law that bars speech but has never before
been enforced. There have been trials under this law, but none
of them were completed.
This time the trial was held behind closed doors. Every
session brought out irregularities like false testimonies or a
judge influencing witnesses or insulting a defending lawyer.
Documents proving innocence appeared and disappeared.
Finally, in January 2000 the accused succeeded in stopping
the lawsuit on a technicality--one of the witnesses was married
to one of the judges. But the other side didn't withdraw.
The trial restarted, but with other judges. After two months
they had to admit the trial had been constructed wrongly since
the beginning and stopped it again.
But judges in Brussels decided to resume the whole trial
from the beginning for a third time. The Movement for Renewal
of the Unions organized a rally of 1,500 workers and unionists
in the city of Clabecq on Feb. 3 of this year.
One hundred years of struggles have won social security,
pensions, education and health services for the workers in
Belgium. This standard of living is under attack by government
policies that favor greed for profit and the power of
monopolies and multinationals.
But the workers of Clabecq continue to show how to resist
when factory owners and financial groups mobilize the
institutional violence of the National Guard, the courts and
the media.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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