BELGIUM: Rail unions start their 24-hour strike demanding the country brings rail employees under one structure

Record ID: 340901

  • Title: BELGIUM: Rail unions start their 24-hour strike demanding the country brings rail employees under one structure
  • Date: 3rd October 2012
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (OCTOBER 2, 2012) (REUTERS) TRAIN SCHEDULE PEOPLE WALKING ON CONCOURSE TWO PASSENGERS TALKING ANNOUNCEMENT OF SERVICE INTERRUPTION PASSENGER AND EMPLOYEE TALKING ON CONCOURSE PEOPLE IN CONCOURSE TALKING ON PHONES WOMAN TALKING ON PHONE MAN TALKING ON PHONE SLIDING GLASS DOOR ENTRANCE TO LONDON EUROSTAR SCREEN READING "LONDON VIA LILLE CANCELLED"
  • Embargoed: 18th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: Employment,Politics,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVACWFLC49Y3G7BQ9AAHAFUK6IX3
  • Story Text: A strike by railway unions in Belgium started on Tuesday (October 2) night and is set to disrupt Eurostar passengers traveling between London and Brussels and hit the Thalys high-speed services between France and Germany.
    The strike began at 2200 GMT Tuesday and will end at 2200 GMT Wednesday. Unions are angry at an attempt to reorganise the state railway company in Belgium.
    The Belgian government plans to eliminate the SNCB holding in charge of human resources and finances, but does not want to reunite Infrabel, which manages the railway infrastructure and SNCB Voyageurs in charge of the transport services.
    Unions are demanding a single structure uniting all areas of railway transportation. EU regulation makes a division of infrastructure and services mandatory to provide equal conditions for competing services using the same railway infrastructure.
    But the strike has left many passengers high and dry.
    Pei Lei Chen, a student at the Catholic University of Leuven and originally from Taiwan, was in Ghent for a conference.
    After the event ran late, she was unable to catch the transferring train in Brussels to take her back to Leuven.
    "I think the workers in Belgium are very protected by the union because, in my country, this would never happen because all the people try to serve others and if the trains stop, the government will think about another strategy like sending a bus or find something else to help people," Chen said.
    Thalys announced the strike would stop its trains that run through Belgium, consequently closing down the company's entire network.
    A Eurostar spokeswoman said that if the strike went ahead, the company is likely to lay on replacement buses and encourage passengers to change the date of their tickets.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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