Battle over Belgian austerity

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'IRELAND - TIME FOR TORY POLICIES TO GO'. Labour movement conference organised by Labour Com-. mittee on Ireland and Committee for Withdrawal from Ireland. Saturday Feb. ruary 27, starting 11am at The Theatre, 309 Regent St, London W1. Delegate's or observer's credentials £2 from 1 North End Road, London W14. The Belgian government has voted through parliament sweeping powers of emergency rule to tackle the raging economic crisis in the country. New emergency laws allow the government to rule by decree for the next year. These decrees aim to:

*Cut real wages by ending the index system of wage rises won by the working class;

*Slash public spending by £1.5 billion;

*Introduce special extra wage cuts in the nationalised steel, textile, shipbuilding and other enterprises;

*Give the parasite capitalist class extra relief by cutting company taxes.

Employers-local and foreign -have of course welcomed the measures. The working class anger and militancy has forced Socialist union leaders to call a one-day general strike this week.

Union bureaucrats allied to the capitalist Christian Democratic parties are opposing the mobilisationalthough the leadership in some regions is being forced to go against this line.

The Socialist-led unions of both the Flemish and French-speaking sections of the working class are taking a common stand on this issue. In a recent strike at the Liege steel company Cockerhill-Sambre, workers in the Socialist and Catholic unions took joint action.

The divisions maintained in the working class by the employers and their bureaucratic agents in the labour movement can and must be overcome in united struggle for the common needs of all workers.

The one-day strike must be used to take forward the fight for mass united action