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The political parties held their May Day speeches in virtual mode. Ecolo, PS and PTB have pleaded for a salary increase. The MR denounced the proposal to ban dividends.
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May 1 traditionally rhymes with the speeches of political parties on the occasion of Labor Day. This year, Covid-19 obliges, the meetings took place in virtual mode.
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The speeches take place while the deadlock in discussions on the inter-professional agreement has shaken the federal majority for several days. On the side of the PS, Ecolo, and the PTB, the emphasis was on salary increases.
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In a Facebook Live, Paul Magnette, the president of the PS, affirmed that “we are also, of course, at the sides of our comrades of the trade union organizations in their fight for the increase of the wages”. “We must be able to grant salary increases to all workers who have continued to give the best of themselves in sectors which, despite the crisis, have made profits. This is obvious to us. We do not understand. not that they are not rewarded for their work “, repeated the socialist while calling also for the continuation of the fight for the minimum wage. The president of the PS had brandished Friday in an interview the proposal to ban dividends if wage increases are limited to 0.4%, a position also defended by the Vooruit.
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For the parti Green, the staff of companies that have had a good year should receive more than a 0.4% salary increase, said Co-Chairs Jean-Marc Nollet and Rajae Maouane in their May 1 message. They believe that the law on wage standards reformed by the previous government should be revised again, as it would make social dialogue very difficult. They criticized the 1996 law on wage standards, which they said needs to be revised. This law was toughened by the previous Michel government. “The blocking of negotiations shows once again that the law seriously hinders social dialogue, but also that it hinders balanced wage increases in healthy sectors and constitutes an obstacle to the promotion of exceptional performance in a crisis situation”, declared Jean-Marc Nollet.
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The PTB on Saturday called on “other left-wing parties” to support the bill to free wage negotiations, filed jointly by Marc Goblet (PS) and Raoul Hedebouw (PTB). “The question is not the name of the law, it is about freeing wage negotiations and giving the working class the respect it deserves,” Hedebouw said in a speech broadcast on Facebook.
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Reacting to the threat from the socialist family to the federal government of block the payment of dividends if wage increases are not granted to workers, the PTB sees it as a “good measure”, while deploring that it has never been applied in 25 years, “even when the Socialists were in government”.
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The president of the MR, George-Louis Bouchez, denounced this Saturday the “false good idea“What, according to him, is the proposal defended by the socialist parties to prohibit the payment of dividends by companies in the event of a 0.4% limit on wage increases, after the failure of negotiations between social partners on an agreement interprofessional (AIP) and returning the ball to the court of the Vivaldi government. “This is not reasonable. This is really – and I’m sorry to say it – populist ideas, ”he said.
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George-Louis Bouchez pointed out that the MR would oppose this threat, brandished by both the PS and its Flemish counterpart, Vooruit (ex-sp.a), two of the seven parties of the federal coalition known as Vivaldi, following the failure of negotiations on the AIP 2021-2022. “It’s easy to say to people: ‘there will be no dividend’. Everyone applauds because they say ‘it’s the multinationals, the very rich’. Did you know that a big receiver of dividends, it is the Belgian State “, he added during an online question-and-answer session with the president of the” brother party “, the Open Vld, Egbert Lachaert. “Are we going to say to the Belgian State: ‘more dividends at Proximus, more dividends at Belfius‘?, he continued, recalling that dividends also generated taxes. “These are hundreds of millions of euros which the State would deprive itself if this measure were ever applied and hundreds of millions less for social security and for public services,” he added.
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