A three-day strike began on Monday at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), with students and staff blocking the Solbosch campus until Wednesday.
The strike responds to a call from the country’s united union front for action from 24 to 26 November.
Among the organisers are student groups including the Union Syndicale Étudiante, Jeunes Anticapitalistes, Librex, Cercle Féministe de l’ULB, and COMAC, as well as the CGSP-ER researchers and teaching staff union and the cleaning staff collective “Balai en Lutte”.
The protesters are opposing austerity measures that they say undermine public services and disregard unions and social movements.
They argue that policies like Arizona and Azur, which affect education, social welfare, employment, and immigration, disproportionately harm working-class people. They call for collective action to overturn the government responsible for these reforms.
Key demands include free and accessible education, safeguarding pensions and unemployment benefits, reducing working hours collectively, having in-house cleaning staff jobs, ending police repression, and building a society focused on people’s needs rather than profit.
The movement also extends solidarity to international campaigns against genocide, imperialism, and neo-colonialism.
The organisers envisage the campus as a “hub of resistance” over the three days, facilitating interactions between schools, workplaces, and diverse experiences. Training sessions, talks, concerts, and debates will be held until Wednesday.
