100,000 Belgians protest labor reform

As reported in 'The Japan News' : The Associated Press, Protesters stand behind a burning car during a national trade union demonstration in Brussels on Thursday.

The Associated Press, BRUSSELS (AP) — About 100,000 workers marched across Brussels Thursday to protest government free-market reforms and austerity measures, and the demonstration ended in violence when people set fire to cars and threw cobblestones and police responded with tear gas and water cannons. About 50 people were injured and 30 detained, police said, in one of biggest postwar labor demonstrations in Belgium, a country long seen as a vaunted welfare state. The violent end overshadowed a raucous but largely peaceful march for better protection of workers during the economic crisis. The workers were protesting government policies that will raise the pension age, freeze wages and cut into public services. “They are hitting the workers, the unemployed. They are not looking for money where it is, I mean, people with a lot of money,” said Philippe Dubois, who came from the industrial rust belt of Liege. The unexpectedly big march opens a monthlong campaign by the trade unions against the business-friendly governing coalition and is to be capped with a nationwide strike on Dec. 15.Speech