Abstract
The Belgium chapter first presents an overview of the trade union landscape dominated by the three historical “pillarized” unions with representative status and the system of workplace representation based on “social elections.” This is followed by a discussion of the Vlaams Belang’s messaging strategy on labor issues, centered on immigration, welfare nativism as well as (more recently) pension policy and opposition to “social dum**,” and its organizing strategy of trying to build its own trade union in the early 2010s before abandoning the attempt. The company case study of DAF Trucks in Westerlo examines far-right challenges at the workplace level, taking as its starting point the Vlaams Belang’s leafleting action against “social dum**” in front of the factory gates in 2015, followed by an analysis of ACV/CSC union actors’ assessment of the extent of far-right traction in the workplace and the union’s education-centered response strategy against it.
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Notes
- 1.
The FN was founded in 1985 following the model of its French namesake, featuring the same name and tricolor flame logo, and was active within Wallonia with a Francophone Belgian nationalism and nativism directed against immigration. The party never exceeded two seats in the federal parliament and peaked at 8.1% in the Walloon regional elections of 2004, but subsequently went into decline and has remained an extremely marginal organization (now under a different name) since its loss of parliamentary representation at all levels in 2009/2010.
- 2.
CVP: Christelijke Volkspartij (Christian People’s Party), the dominant party in postwar Flanders, re-founded as CD&V in 2001; PVV: Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang (Party for Freedom and Progress), renamed in 1992 as VLD (Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten, Flemish Liberals and Democrats; currently Open VLD).
- 3.
Kochuyt and Abts (2017) conducted 37 qualitative interviews in December 2004 with VB voters from different socio-economic backgrounds and districts within Antwerp.
- 4.
The website ceased operations in 2007 and is no longer accessible. A selection of posts made there was published in the form of a book, What You Have to Know about the Vlaams Belang (Spruyt, 2006).
- 5.
Ultimately, as expected, the VB went into opposition: at the federal level, against the initial continuation of a minority government of the liberals and CD&V (2019–2020), then the “Vivaldi coalition” of liberals, social democrats, Greens, and CD&V (since 2020); at the regional level, against a coalition of N-VA, CD&V, and Open VLD.
- 6.
In this light, media reports such as the above-cited TV report (Vlaams Belang voert actie bij DAF in Oevel, 2015) have to be viewed in a critical light insofar as they merely reproduce the VB’s orchestrated appeal to labor issues without inquiring into the opinions and responses of workers.
- 7.
See, for instance, the accusation to this effect by ex-prime minister Elio Di Rupo (PS), who also argues that the PVDA/PTB, “just like the extreme right, presents things in a very simple way” and ultimately strives for nothing less than a return to the Soviet Union (“Di Rupo: l’infiltration de la FGTB par le PTB est ‘un énorme problème’ pour le PS,” 2019).
- 8.
Activists or militanten refers to members who serve as union delegates at the workplace level or within the union organization. According to its own figures, the ACV/CSC has over 80,000 militanten among its approximately 1.6 million members (Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond, n.d.). At DAF Trucks, with its 26,000-strong workforce, there are some 30–50 ACV militanten (Interviews 4, 6).
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List of Interviews
List of Interviews
- Interview 1:
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ACV official in the education service
- Interview 2:
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ACV-Metea official in the education service
- Interview 3:
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Three members of an ACV working group against the far right
- Interview 4:
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ACV-Metea official in the Kempen region
- Interview 5:
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ACV-Metea workplace delegate at DAF Trucks (Westerlo)
- Interview 6:
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Team of ACV-Metea workplace delegates at DAF Trucks (Westerlo)
- Interview 7:
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Two ABVV officials in the education service
- Interview 8:
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Belgian political scientist at a university
- Interview 9:
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Belgian historian at a university
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Kim, S., Greef, S., Schroeder, W. (2022). Belgium. In: The Far Right in the Workplace. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04002-3_3
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