THE "LOI UNIQUE" WILL NOT BE APPLIED; PAMPHLET ON THE STRIKE
Despite the unbroken spirit, and determination to renew the attack on the first favorable occasion, with which the Belgian workers returned to the factories, mines, and offices after the great strike of 1960-1961, the bourgeois press cried victory, because both houses of parliament had finally passed, in amended form, the iniquitous "Loi Unique" which was the initial cause of the strike action. Less emphasized was the fact that the strike had toppled the government of Premier Eyskens, the "tough" weakling who had pig-headedly insisted on the passage of the law, since parliament was dissolved and new elections called for 26 March.
But now even the "victory" of the vote of the "Loi Unique" has turned to ashes in the capitalists' hands.
It was supposed that the outgoing coalition cabinet would, as is the usual practice, remain simply "to expedite current affairs." But when the Liberals, who were never keen for the "Loi Unique" in the first place, learned that Eyskens and the Christian Democrats actually meant to apply it in the intervening period, they blew and resigned. Their mental processes can well be street," but to apply it, and probably provoke new and incalculable explosions of popular indignation - ah, no! There was frenetic activity among the ministers and party leaders, scramble in what the neatly "a pretty basketful of crabs"; and it was finally announced that none of the measures of the "Loi Unique" would be applied in the pre-election period. So that even on this disputed point, the strike was successful.
Meanwhile, by a joint effort of our Belgian and French comrades, a 32-page pamphlet has been issued — La Grève Belge de 1960-61: Force et faiblesse d'un grand combat, ly the Belgian comrades Jean de Vries, Fernand Charlier, and Emile Decoux. This excellent study analyzes the strike in its origin, methods, and development; characterizes from both the political and trade-union viewpoint the behavior of the various organizations and tendencies of the Belgian workers' movement; and draws from the whole complex experience the necessary lessons and their application to future actions.
Those of our readers who read French may obtain the up well to imagined: it was all very vote the law as a matter of prestige and not "yield to the pressure of the
* pamphlet from
PIERRE
FRANK,
Richelien,
Paris 2 (1 new frane).
Bolivia