Volkswagen: Belgian unions and politicians carry on mobilizing for the Forest site

After the first consultation meeting with the Volkswagen management yesterday, November 23, as part of the Forest (Belgium) firm's reorganization (see our article n° 061176,) the union joint forces decided to carry on the strike until December 15, date to which the Volkswagen group's supervisory board should take a definite stand. The Belgian government, for its part, convened a crisis cell supposed to oversee the retraining of the 4,000 employees likely to loose their jobs. (Ref. 061180)
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During this first meeting, unions could not get anything concrete as to the Belgian Forest jobs’ future. The firm’s personnel director, Jos Kayaerts, nonetheless asserted that the site’s closure was not in the agenda and guaranteed that he would save the promised 1,500 jobs.

Belgian and European authorities come to the rescue. The Ministers in charge of employment in Flanders, in Wallonia and in Brussels – also supported by the Belgian federal government – indicated on that same day (11/23) tha

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