20,000 march against closure of Volkswagen factory in Brussels

Delegations from other Belgian companies, which are also threatened by job losses—i.e., Kraft Food—protested with their own banners against redundancies. Other banners bore large cartoons alluding to the sex scandal involving the German works council boss, Klaus Volkert. In his official capacity, Volkert received nearly 700,000 euros a year from the company plus expenses for his girlfriend in Brazil.

There were few political slogans on the protest. Posters and banners proclaimed “Solidarity for jobs” and the names of various trade unions. Workers from the factory assembled around a broken auto chassis bearing a coffin. Retirees from the company carried a poster with the message: “Retirees support you—with rage in our heart.”

While there was no mistaking the deeply felt anger and indignation on the part of demonstrators, the trade union organisers of the protest intended it as a boost to their credibility while permitting workers to let off steam harmlessly. The unions had called for an “international demonstration” and indicated that workers from Volkswagen factories across Europe would attend to protest the destruction of jobs and the transfer of production from one location to another. “We will not allow individual Volkswagen locations to be played off one against the other,” was the formulation used by Germany’s biggest industrial trade union, the IG Metall, in its appeal to attend the protest.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/volk-d06.shtml