Can unions bring Arizona to its knees? The question arises then that yesterday, the mobilization in Brussels met with an unexpected success for the unions themselves.
30,000 people
30,000 people according to the police, the unions had announced 10,000 and secretly hoped for 20,000. From their point of view, it is therefore a real success. This is not the first national mobilization since the elections: there was a first on December 13 against austerity. At the time, only 3,500 people had gathered. It is therefore the first to achieve real crowd success and which could indicate a new dynamic of social conflict. To explain this success, we can undoubtedly point to the fact that the Arizona projects are now better known and have had time to percolate into public opinion. And then, above all, this mobilization touched on pensions, which since Charles Michel’s Swede in 2014, remain the most mobilizing theme.
Flemish and green
Beyond the numbers, what stands out is the composition of the procession. I went to the center yesterday and I was struck by the very Flemish composition of the procession. Most of the people I met came from the north of the country, and a large number of them were teachers, then police or army officials. Public sector employees. And this is important: the procession was largely dominated by green, the color of the CSC.
For many people I met, it was quite often their first mobilization: people who, at 30 or 40 years old, had never set foot on the streets and who do not accept the idea of seeing the regime of reduced public sector pension. Arizona projects are circulating the idea of aligning public sector pensions with the private sector to save on the cost of the system. If the idea seems well advanced, the overall amount and pace of this reform are still the subject of negotiations.
Arm wrestling
Can this mobilization really change things and bend the Arizona negotiators? Even the day before yesterday, I would have been more inclined to say no to you. Because the parties present, even those further to the left (Vooruit, CD&V and Engagés), are determined to move forward where Vivaldi has stagnated. They want to act to face the costs of aging for the State which will increase, according to the public finance monitoring committee, by around 5 billion per year.
-But what happened yesterday could still play a role. In particular, the fact that many Flemish teachers have mobilized. The VRT noted yesterday that around 16% of employees in the education sector in Flanders went on strike, which is a historically high figure.
However, this sector is decisive for parties like Vooruit (some representatives of which were present in the procession yesterday), for the CD&V (which still maintains some links with the ACV, the Christian union) and even for the N-VA, which has Flemish education in his skills and who wishes to revalorize the profession of teacher. It is quite symptomatic to hear Zuhal Demir, Flemish N-VA Minister of Education, or the N-VA President of the Chamber, Peter De Roover, intervene to try to reassure by promising that the public system will not be entirely aligned with the private sector and that the transition period will be long. Because revaluing the profession of teacher and cutting pensions seems contradictory to many people in education.
Signal ?
For the unions, it is also a signal: there is possible ground for mobilization. After the elections, the unions were a little stunned, it must be said. There, they find hope. But at the same time, yesterday’s success immediately sets all its limits. Mobilization was certainly strong in the public sector, but rather weak in the private sector. However, the unions cannot afford to walk on one leg at the risk of falling into the trap set by their adversaries, that of presenting the public sector as privileged. The equation is far from simple, but the 2025 social year did indeed begin on January 13.
