Just had a company event and out of nowhere they all started talking about ma freeze peach and how China is “literally 1984” and how we can see that our main conflicts nowadays are between “evil autocracy” and “democracy with western values where it could never happen that the press is lying”. I had to bite my tongue so hard the entire time, which I think they noticed. In the end I just said that I don’t want to provoke the inevitable world war 3 even more, which killed the mood hard lol.
It’s so frustrating to be alone in a group of “intellectuals”… Especially if you need to stay civil to not get fired.
Most wages get adjusted to inflation yearly. So I think in January my wage will rise 10,something% (official figure). The government decided that companies won’t have to go above the inflation for two years, which means no raise for the entire country for two years. The adjustment is not bad but even then the unions decided it isn’t enough and are calling for a new strike (last one being 9th of november). So they are pushing for more, as they should.
Unions remained powerful in Belgium, together with the workforce in general. In The Netherlands the unions died down for example and are only now regaining momentum. This lead to a dying down of the Dutch labor movement in general, whereas it remained strong in Belgium. That’s one of the reasons Belgium has an openly marxist political party right now, and The Netherlands doesn’t. It’s not a shame here to be communist.