Search

Bus drivers and train staff in regional transport went on strike again on Thursday due to dissatisfaction with the stalled collective labor agreement negotiations, with the unions announcing that they would strike one day a week until Christmas. #Staking #Streekvervoer #FNV (translated)

Stefan Willems shared a message from Grégory de Walque, commercial director of car-sharing platform Poppy, about the damage to shared cars in Brussels and Antwerp. De Walque wrote that Poppy had reached its record number of rides on Friday because the metro was not running and thousands of people used the app to get to work. By the end of the day, according to him, eight vehicles had been destroyed, two of which were completely burned out. He wrote that the damage was caused by rioters, not by protesters, and that this was the second time this year for Poppy. In his message, De Walque countered three reactions that he claimed to have often read under videos of the destruction: that shared cars belong to no one, that Poppy is insured, and that a large company would hardly notice a few destroyed cars. He stated that every Poppy is used hundreds of times a year and referred to research from Brussels Mobility, according to which each Poppy replaces 11.5 private cars among regular users. According to De Walque, Poppy was not insured for this kind of damage, and each destroyed car represented a direct loss. The costs of the destruction, he said, were higher than the revenue from Poppy's best day ever. He also wrote that the company had only had one profitable year since its inception and that the fleet consisted of 2,500 cars. De Walque wrote that the team would get the damaged cars back on the road, even during a strike. He asked Brussels, according to him, to help keep the shared cars available. #autodelen #Brussel #mobiliteit (translated)

Maurits Vande Reyde wrote that the public broadcaster had, in his view, provided misleading coverage in recent weeks regarding alleged severe cuts at VRT. According to him, unions had been given uninterrupted radio and airtime, while VRT NWS had not provided objective context and had widely disseminated their message. He described this as a situation at the level of a banana republic. Vande Reyde stated that the funding for VRT had increased in recent years, with millions more for, among other things, combating fake news and pension costs, and that only limited cuts had been made. Furthermore, he argued that the broadcaster could have generated more revenue from digital advertising. During the previous budget discussions, new concessions had been made regarding this, allowing VRT to show millions more in digital advertising, he wrote. According to him, parliament had not been informed about those agreements. He claimed that VRT had negotiated directly at the government table and secured a lot, only to then loudly protest and strike. According to him, the news editorial team had adopted the alarming stories from the unions. Vande Reyde wrote that trust in the media had thereby reached a historic low. #VRT #fakenews #mediawijsheid (translated)

On Wednesday, travelers in regional transport experience significant delays and cancellations of buses and trains due to a national strike resulting from a collective labor agreement conflict, with most lines in parts of the Netherlands not operating. #staking #streekvervoer #reizen (translated)

On Wednesday, there will be no buses and trains operating in the regional transport due to a strike by bus drivers and train conductors, which is causing uncertainty about the schedule, and passengers will have to expect cancellations and delays. #staking #streekvervoer #openbaarvervoer (translated)