Context: Belgian wages are (for a lot of people) tied to the inflation, meaning if inflation is 2%, wages HAVE to be raised at least 2%. So for januari 2023, the wages wil rise with the official percentage of 11.xx%. This is not a raise, it’s a compensation for the increase in cost of living at best.
A week or something ago the government allowed companies to not raise wages above the inflation index for two years, effectively blocking Belgian employees from getting a raise. To ‘compensate’ workers, the government allowed companies to give out cheques of up to 750 euro if they wanted to. 80% are now saying that they won’t, meaning Belgian employees get nothing really.
Unions have already called for new nation wide actions on december 16th.
So throughout the day I’ve kept track of the sentiment of the public towards this. A lot of people are angry at the employers it seems. In public but even on mainstream Belgian subs. This surprises me as the majority of the people are siding with unions. The people against strikes and actions are now a minority and their comments (both online and offline) are getting shamed.
In unrelated news: my energy supplier send a general e-mail regarding high energy prices. They closed the mail with: ‘with warm regards’. I found this to be comically insulting as a majority of the population are scared to turn on their heating and are living in cold homes.