"On 10 April 1995 I got up thinking about the Boel shipyard in Temse." "Workers were occupying the shipyard, but I had no idea what that entailed." "What I wanted to see were ships, a shipyard building ocean-going ships." "I saw it in my mind, a ship being built on the banks of a river, on land and then this ship sailing down the river and out to sea." "It was around midnight, in Café L'Epinal, that I made my decision." "I stood between the cigarette machine and the toilet door, making way for a man, the son of a mineworker, who accused documentary makers of their lack of social commitment." "It was there and then, face to face with the mineworker's son, the air thick with beer and cigarette fumes, that I thought of the shipyard now in liquidation." "On 30 November 1994," "Boelwerf Flanders in Temse on the river Scheldt was declared bankrupt." "This heralded the end of shipbuilding in Belgium, the end of an industry." "Ships are now built elsewhere in the world, faster and cheaper." "After seven months of occupation by the workers, the yard was placed into receivership." "The clearance sale of an industry could now begin." "And so, an end came to a community of shipbuilders, to a history of generations that had lived on and around the shipyard." "The workman stands by the locked gates, looking at a world in which his skills no longer count." "A world in which not only labour is changing, but everything else." "LOSTTRADES AND FORMS OF LABOUR IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF TEMSE" "Everything comes to an end and each end is a new beginning." "Why make such a big fuss about the end of shipbuilding ?" "Some trust in the future." "Every leaf which falls, heralds a new spring." "Flemish entrepreneurs should remain hopeful and face the future with courage and optimism." "History tells us that each depression is followed by a time of regression." "It's a tendency." "We shouldn't be turning this current uncertainty into a cult, so to speak, where nothing is possible." "We still can do a lot, and I believe that's the message we should be sending out to young people." "In my view it's not impossible that between now and one or two decades shipbuilding will return to Europe, without subsidizing." "Why ?" "Well, employment costs on other continents will increase as well." "It's a global world, and that counts for all countries." "And here, costs will have decreased ?" " Exactly." "EUGÈNE LAERMANS "AN EVENING STRIKE"" "And some believe that everything has its price." "Everything comes to an end, except injustice." "The workers here have been treated abominably." "The workers here in Temse, at Boel shipyard, the workers themselves, who deserved a lot more, have been lied to, have been cheated and I'd even say they've been robbed." "If they had any human feelings at all, and could put aside business considerations, things would probably have remained as they were." "But business motivations carry more weight than human considerations." "AS LONG AS SHIPBUILDERS KEEP SINGING" "I had just started working on this story when I visited the conductor of the Boelwerf Brass Band, Ward Foubert." "At that time, I knew so little and I already heard the music." "He told about shipbuilder-musicians leaving the workshops and dressing up, about launches, about the bottle of champagne and the national anthem." ""I was obliged by protocol to keep my gloves on," the conductor told me." ""When I shook hands with a lady, I kept my white gloves on, even though they were soaking wet from the rain."" "The Song of the White Gloves" "They felt it shalking, heard it craclking." "It went through marrow and bone." "A ship was launched, slid down the slope, but the band lkept playing in time." "Loolk how the conductor shines beside an elegant, fur-coated lady, her delicate hand in his white cotton glove never touching his worlker's bare hand." "They felt it shalking, heard it craclking." "It went through marrow and bone." "A ship was launched, slid down the slope, but the band lkept playing in time." ""There goes my ship", says the Boel boss." ""There goes my ship", thinlks the buyer, the owner." "But a yard number-drummer dares to say:" ""Out on the water there floats our worlk, our sweat."" "The Boel brass band in hall 'Den Es'" "PARTONE" "CHAMPAGNE !" "(1829 - 1969)" "Bernard Boel, a shipwright from the port of Antwerp, sets up business in Temse." "The region already boasted many shipwright yards, but Bernard Boel wanted to start up his own business, be his own man." "He rolls up his sleeves and starts to build small wooden boats." "He's master over his work, he brings in clients, he builds and he sells." "Jozef Boel, Bernard's only son, soon joins him to work in the company." "Next to the church tower at the Scheldt, he too works with saw, plane, hammer, pitch and flax, which he calls hemp." "I had to look at my map of Belgium, since I had no idea where Temse was." "The A12 to Antwerp and then to Sint-Niklaas." "This was the first thing I saw :" "the Temse bridge over the Scheldt, and further to the left, the cranes of the shipyard." "I saw a group of workmen discussing behind the gatekeeper's lodge windows." "I wasn't allowed in." "Now that I was showing interest in the shipbuilders, they closed the door." "A guy with a red helmet asked me which TV station I was working for." "I told him I didn't work for television." "He asked me who I was." "I couldn't give him an answer straight away." "I took my first photos." "I was impressed : the occupation, blocks of concrete, "no entry" signs, how serious people were." "It's only 39 years after the small shipyard began that the first worker, Jef Pauwels, nicknamed "Pitchhead", is taken on." "From now on he'll be known as "yard number 1 "." "They nicknamed him the "Pitchhead", because of the hemp that was used on the helm, to stop up the seams..." "I can't think of the right word." "To seal them up ?" " To caulk them." "And then pitch was poured on the hemp." "To seal up the seams." "My godfather smelled of pitch." "The whole house smelled of pitch when he came home." "In those days, they didn't have working clothes to change into." "That's why they called him the "Pitchhead"." "Bernard, his son Jozef and yard nr. 1 saw planks from the same wood." "They know each other's sweat, joy and sadness." "Jef Pauwels, the Pitchhead, is the first employee, and it's with this man the yard's social history starts." "Every day at 11.30 a.m., when school was out, I had to go to the shipyard." "At twelve o'clock, when the bell for mealtime sounded," "I had to be there with a mess tin full of potatoes, meat and vegetables." "At the shipyard, there was this barrack, a wooden shed, open on one side, which they closed in winter." "I had to go in there through a gate, wade through the shavings and wait, sitting on a board, until he had finished eating." "Then I took the empty mess tin home." "JOZEF BOEL PLAYING A GAME OF BOWLS IN A LOCAL PUB" "Jozef expands the company, and takes on more yard numbers." "Jozef might be the boss, but feels like a shipbuilder among shipbuilders." "A row of back to back workers' houses, that is the world around the yard." "The clogs of the shaved and deloused children ring out on the cobblestones." "The first class shipbuilders, the second and third class shipbuilders work from 6 in the morning until 7 in the evening during the summer." "It's only in the winter that there is less work." "Shipbuilding is a traditional skill." "The builders have to be inventive as each ship is different." "There is a bond between them and theirjob." "They live where they work, their work is their life." "At last, the barriers to the shipyard, the Zaat, are raised, and I can enter." "A security agent drove me around and patiently answered my naive questions." "I knew nothing about shipbuilding." "Neither did I know anything about unions or occupation of premises." "I took photographs of the two ships in the dry dock, and from hull to keel they seemed to be the biggest ships I'd ever seen." ""They are small ships," my guide said, "we used to build much bigger ones."" "I walked around, pointed at things, something was squeaking, wind, the throbbing of a small pump." "I heard and read words I didn't understand :" "section, plasma burner, write off, nests, keel, frame, knee..." "ASSEMBLY" "FITTERS" "CRANE DRIVERS" " HITCHERS" "BENCH HANDS" "WELDERS" "The visit finally ended in "Den Es", the building housing showers, toilets and canteen." "The general meeting had finished, groups of workers sat around talking." "I take photos of those present as if in a hurry, making last minute recordings of a dying race." "The race of the production worker." "The type building ships from steel plates." "This is the plate for ship number 1550 for section or part 3111, which is located portside." "The part itself is named or numbered 552." "The combination of these four elements makes this part unique." "A few other pieces of information are added, such as this one, which marks the upper part of the plate." "This indicates the kind of steel of which it has been made." "Block 3053, the block out of which this plate has been burnt." "Here we see that this plate has to be made into a mast platform, a mast platform with these references, the section number 3111." "Here we are instructed, when the plate is turned into a platform, it has to be joined to part number 553." "The Song of the Steel Plate" "A ship, madam, is made from plates of steel." "From the lkeel to the declk, from top to bottom, pure steel." "We bend the plates to our own whims, madam." "My lady on the other hand, madam, is less cold," "But she doesn't yet bend, and our marriage is 15 years old." "Plate after plate after plate, that's how we build her up, the ship." "High as a bloclk of flats, madam, long as a street." "This is the first stage in the production process." "The architects have designed and drawn the ship, divided it into sections or blocks and determined the number of plates." "The plates are then brought to this plate ground." "These plates have their destination cut out for them." "However, Jozef Boel's sons, Cesar and Frans, see the rise of the metal industry and the creation of wide canals." "They start building iron ships." "They act, look to the future." "Their first iron spits is delivered in 1895." "I remember it clearly, I saw a ship passing by and he said to me : "I'll give you a copy of a picture book of ships."" "This is it, I've treasured it all this time." "It's all about the Boel shipbuilding yard." "We turn the pages and what do we see ?" "Lights heralding modern times in the workshops." "The plate processing with machines operated by belts and belt pulleys." "But notice the lighting." "The same thing in the mechanical carpenter's workshop." "A magnificent example of an ideal drawing office." "The ordinary drawing offices." "And finally, the workshops where the plates are cut, pressed and burnt." "And finally, the smithy, adequately lit and ventilated even then." "New skills and machines transform life at the yard, the life of shipbuilders who work some 60 hours a week." "Now there are some 200 yard numbers at the Zaat." "The shipyard is one of the largest in Europe." "In 1911, 32 ships are built including the Rhine-going "Graaf de Smet de Naeyer", job nr. 320." "A 118-meter long ship." "Here you see the same vessel on its maiden voyage." "At the time, in 1911, this was the largest river vessel in Europe." "On the eve of the First World War gods and bosses are abolished." "Young socialism decrees that a just world is possible for the workman." "But in the die-hard Catholic Temse, shipbuilders still fear the parish priest and the Boel boss." "Let's put it this way, their fear was greater than their protest." "Back then, Boel was Temse's meal ticket." "If you got fired, you wouldn't find anotherjob in the whole of Temse." "Temse depended on the shipyard." "What was Jozef Boel thinking of just before he died on 7 March 1914 ?" "He had seen socialism come to Temse, and then the outbreak of war." "At the same time he had learned of his sons Frans and Cesar's grand plans." "He still wore workers' overalls, while his sons only wore suits." "He had lived at the yard all this time with his faithful guard dogs." "Did the shipyard continue to produce during World War I ?" "Yes, it did." "On a smaller scale." "On a very small scale." "And then the interview with the oldest witness, one time secretary to Frans Boel." "She was 90 years old." "She didn't want her face on camera, and wouldn't say her name." ""You can have my voice," she said, "but that's all."" "I've always thought Frans and Cesar Boel to be serious and honest employers, good to the workers." "Always." "If you worked hard, they could be very understanding and allow you the time that you needed to finish the job." "If you showed them your willingness to work, they paid you well." "You couldn't find a better paid job anywhere else around these parts." "No way." "They valued the work that you did, especially Frans Boel." "They were not human, the brothers Boel." "They were beasts." "They weren't rich by birth." "They expected other people to give their very best." "No question of compassion or anything of the sort." "They began at 14, the children who worked at the Zaat in the clinker gangs." "Those not fast enough had their bottoms smeared with pitch." "The more nails hammered in, the bigger the bonus." "The plates are joined, plates and profiles are joined by means of rivets." "I've brought some rivets to show you that there are different kinds, different diameters." "These red-hot rivets were placed in the respective holes." "A team of workers consisted of five people." "Firstly, a young boy at the forge, whose task was to have the rivets red-hot and ready on time." "When work on the shipyard started at half past seven, the rivets had to be red-hot and ready for use." "This meant that the boy had to be there half an hour earlier." "When the red-hot rivets were ready, but not burnt, a skilled worker threw them with a pair of thongs." "Another young boy with a very responsible job then put the red-hot rivet in the right hole for the skilled workers to do theirjobs." "There was the bar holder, a very strong guy, who held the rivet in place with his iron bar." "On the other side, there was the riveter who had to drive the rivet through the countersunk hole." "When the top was round and smooth, the rivet was safely secured." "If the bar holder lost his grip, the rivet would be loose." "Then you had a fifth man, who held a big drill, because the holes wouldn't always match." "With his countersink bore, he had to drill all the holes to make them near-perfect." "So while a team consisted of five people, but sometimes some forty teams could be operating at the same time." "More than two hundred people." "Can you imagine the noise ?" "You see, it is understandable that the old shipbuilders are all deaf." "They came and counted the number of rivets every day." "The more rivets you nailed down, the bigger the bonus." "So you hurried each other along." " Of course." "And what's more, when the head of a ship was to be riveted, they positioned a riveter on each side." "You see ?" "Portside and starboard." "And they started banging away." "That's the way it was done." "And then came the first important revolt against the bosses." "Pay negotiations were soon followed by the 48-hour week." "Workers get nothing for nothing." "The gateman took care of the wounded." "If you had hurt your finger, you put it through the hole in the partition and the gateman bandaged it from inside." "You were not invited in." "Yard number 1, Jef Pauwels, Pitchhead, is still working at the Zaat." "He sees new offices, working areas and techniques." "He sees both the yard and the vessels growing." "The iron boats have turned into steel ones." "FRANS BOEL'S HOUSE" "Frans Boel sets up a technical school, forms the Temsica football team, starts a shipping insurance, brings in a modern filing and incentive system." "The Boel boss is sent to Belgian Congo under the government's directive to study the possibilities of setting up a shipyard there." "The design followed the same principle as other vessels." "The ship was also built on the slip." "But it was completely assembled with bolts and screws." "No rivets." "Each plate and each profile, each knee piece, each little part was numbered." "When the whole vessel had been carefully numbered, it was completely disassembled, all the parts were put in specially made wooden cases and sent to Congo." "At the shipyard over there," "Belgian experts who had travelled there would put the ship together again and clinch it." "THE "KIVU",JOB NR. 647, ON LAKE TANGANYKA" "Now ships sail to Belgian Congo with ships in the holds." "KING ALBERT, QUEEN ELISABETH AND PRINCE LEOPOLD" "ATTHE INAUGURATION OF THE HOSPITAL SHIP "BELGIQUE"" "FOR BELGIAN CONGO.JOB NR. 501." "Frans Boel becomes mayor of Temse." "Jef Pauwels, yard number 1, retires after more than 60 years of service and receives a gold medal." "His wife has the medal valued and is told it's not made from real gold." "Even so, yard number 1 was proud of the growth and prosperity of the Zaat." "In 1933, what once was a one-man company, now becomes Jos Boel  Sons Shipbuilding Yards." "The family is happy about the marriage of Marie-José Boel to the young engineer Georges Van Damme, who is soon appointed to the board of directors." "The world of the shipbuilders is totally comprehensive :" "the bosses are the owners, the family holds all the shares, and family members run the yard." "The yard numbers know who pays their wages." "They know the power and whims of their bosses." "But they know their bosses." "All the bosses thought about was building ships, they don't think, yet, of other market segments, subcontracting, delocalization." "How can they imagine a world in which shareholders, seated in boardrooms, decide about the development of an economic patrimony, about products and companies, about the life of workers they will never even know." "The Boel bosses live at and for the yard." "I never called him Mr. Boel." "He preferred to be called Mr. Frans." "He was the one with the bowler hat." "If he'd had a stroke of bad luck or he'd seen someone doing a bad job, he'd curse and swear and pull down his hat hard." "Sometimes he would order a worker who had done a bad job to go home." "The man would put on his coat to go, but would be stopped at the gate and told to get back to work." "That was typical of him." "The old shipyard workers told lots of stories about him." "Frans Boel, he was quite something." "I had received a fax from film director Frans Buyens." "Frans had written down a sentence from "Voor Allen" of 23 September 1934, from an article aimed at the Deacon." ""Do you know how difficult it is for a socialist to find work at Boel  Sons, how the foremen have to refuse to accept socialists."" "Frans Buyens grew up in Temse and worked at the Zaat during the war." "He would have liked to make the documentary I am making." "He was looking for images of shipyards throughout the world." ""It is a question of world economy," he told me." "I have decided not to make a journey, but to stay here in Temse." "We competed with shipyards in Japan and Korea, where a worker or an office employee worked more than 2,500 hours a year for his company." "Compare this with our conditions :" "Here they worked about 1,500 hours." "A Korean shipyard can build a ship twice as fast as we can, simply because each individual worker puts in more hours than our workers." "Since we're talking about projects worth billions, involving heavy financial costs, time is money, as usual." "That Japanese shipyard is part of a big concern which produces steel and machines, which produces pumps and paint, and so on." "So, the ship is the end product, to which all members of the group have "supplied" their products to the shipyard where it is all assembled." "Let me tell you, a shipyard like Hyundai turns out a vessel every week." "We're talking about a workforce of forty to fifty thousand people." "They have almost completely closed down European shipbuilding." "Where can I order a ship at the lowest price ?" "If Japan cuts the cost by twenty or thirty percent, you can all go to hell, as I'm ordering my ship in Japan." "That is the logic of capitalism." "At present, there are 650 yard numbers working at the Zaat." "The craftsman-workman calls himself a worker, aware of his identity." "There is strength in his numbers." "Modernisation, upgraded draughtsmen offices, new forges and joineries." "Not only machines to punch holes for rivets in the plates, but also the first presses to shape the steel plates." "This is one of the two 500-tonne hydraulic presses." "If you look at the front or the rear of a ship, you can see the streamlined forms." "These streamlined forms are made by means of this machine." "For a plate worker, this is one of the most complicated machines to operate." "Not only do you have to know its power and be able to work with it, you also have to be able to calculate the effect on the plate when it is pressed under this powerful machine." "To train somebody to work this machine properly can easily take one or two years." "Working the stringer oven, that was very tough." "You put a stringer in an oven that was ten meters long." "When it came out, it was red-hot." "At first, I thought I would not be able to bear it." "Visitors to the shipyard, interested in our work, recoiled from the heat." "And we had to bend over the stringer to give it the right shape." "The frame reflects the form of the ship." "Or to put it differently :" "It is the ship's ribcage." "Each stringer is a rib, placed at a certain distance from the next one." "Sharp in the front, about the same in the middle and with a different shape in the rear." "A photograph of the Boel family at that time." "Mayor Frans Boel, his brother Cesar Boel, and Frans' son, named Jozef, after his grandfather." "Jozef II was known as Jef." "Jef Boel is not only a hard worker, he is also eccentric and reckless." "He once flew in his private plane under the Scheldt bridge at low water." "He ran the Temsica football team, and the players were heroes at the yard." "But they never dared talk to him about wages or safety." "When we were boys, we had to go either to trade school or to the academy." "We worked until 5.15 p.m." "We had to go to trade school from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m." "Every day." "And we worked Saturdays as well." "On Saturday afternoons, we had to go to the shipyard's trade school." "Or on Sunday mornings." "Depending on what group you were in." "Jefke Boel himself taught us from his descriptive geometry book." "I have it here." "A book on descriptive geometry, applied to the designing of ships." "You had to take lessons and do homework, which Jef corrected himself." "Jefke Boel's book cost 150 francs." "At the time, I earned 180 francs a week." "Thursday, 27 April 1995." "I was having breakfast, listening to the news on the radio." "The court had rejected the union's opposition towards the liquidation," "By the end of May, 1,100 workers would be dismissed." "The receivers could now start work at the Zaat." "I remember the closing sentence perfectly :" ""The curtain has finally come down on Flanders' last shipbuilding yard."" "OCCUPIERS REFUSE RECEIVER ENTRY INTO SHIPYARD" "Please listen to me." "I am going to read the decree to you." "Give us work instead." " Work is what we need." "Section 514 of the judicial code of law..." "Let's join hands and continue our fight." "Actions speak louder than words." "We'll fight until we die." "Let's join hands and continue our fight." "Actions speak louder than words." "For your own good..." "Let's join hands and continue our fight." "Actions speak louder than words." "We'll fight until we die." "This is no longer a protest meeting, they are sabotaging legal procedures." "It's a danger to democracy." "We do not want to clear the shipyard, we are only asking for the documents." "Driving to Temse, driving to Temse, always driving to Temse, to see the subject of your documentary growing and swelling." "Real shipwrecks are allowed to sail the seas." "If only they conducted serious annual inspections instead of this system where a ship that is rejected by the strict Norwegians or by the English simply goes to Limassol or Taiwan where it is sure to pass." "If the inspection were as severe as in Belgium, Holland and France, and ships that were not seaworthy were forbidden to sail, all shipyards would have work." " It could be solved right away." "If environmental organizations were to become more powerful, they would ban single-sided tankers." "This is under discussion now." "They'll make double sides obligatory, as we've been building them for years." "The ship will be more expensive, but it will survive a small collision without massively polluting the seas with its oil." "Certain powers in this country always stand up for the service sector and want it to get the upper hand in our economic system." "I don't believe in that." "We may well all go to school until we're 18 or 21, but will we all find jobs behind computers ?" "Will we all learn to use the new technologies ?" "There won't be enough jobs." "The result will be that a number of people drop out of society." "Not everybody is fit to be a scholar or a politician." "We can't all become civil servants." "Ordinary people must be able to find employment in private enterprises." "If that becomes impossible, the number of dropouts will increase." "You feel sympathy for your neighbour who loses his job, but you're glad you've still got yours." "There is not much solidarity." "What's amiss ?" "First of all, overproduction." "If there is lots of work, you work day and night." "It can't go on like this." "And... what should be done ?" "Don't ask me." "I have no idea." "The only successful business in Belgium is the sex industry." "Women trafficking and sex." "Only that." "And the banks maybe ?" " And banks." "Banks as well." "All those newly unemployed workers are to the employers' advantage." "They expect you to work at a lower hourly wage." "Do they really ?" " Of course." "You get a contract for two or three months." "Impossible to feel secure." " A loss of social rights." "It is the law of free enterprise, that's the way capitalism works, it is a matter of competition, and the final aim is to make profit, to build an empire, to be the greatest." "Thanks very much, Eddy." "Any plans for the future ?" "Plans ?" "I intend to do a lot of fishing." "Play with my dog." "Enjoy my wife's company." "That's about it." "SEPTEMBER 1995, THE LAUNCH OF THE SECOND TO LASTSHIP," "THE "KEMIRA-GAS",JOB NR. 1546." "Let's take a look at this scene :" "The old Frans Boel is carrying the box which holds the axe for the ceremony." "There are Nazis around him, and standing next to him, his son Jef." "Then we see the pure Aryan shepherdess who is to cut the tape with the axe." "The war is in full swing, but there's social unrest." "In 1941, the yard numbers stage a general strike." "They profit from the occupation, as they stay in Temse and at the Zaat, exempt from forced labour for the Germans." "On 15 October 1943, Frans Boel dies, the man who had made the shipyard big." "Jef Boel takes over the shipyard, and lives a loose life during the war." "The Germans were an example to him." "When we stood at the gate, wanting to quit because of the cold, he told us to think of our brothers on the Eastern front." "The expansion of the Zaat continues." "Two new construction slopes and new offices are added." "In the dusty workshops next to the frames oven, the workers receive nutritious war soup." "Their yard numbers are printed on their plates." "The office workers get their soup in nicer bowls." "Rank and position continue through the war." "For the first time, ocean-going vessels are built," "Hansa ships for the German occupiers." "But the resistance is active, too." "They managed to manufacture two identical stringers one after another." "Even though the second one had to have a sharper form." "In a propeller, you have a key groove." "The key disappeared." "And it went even further than that." "Files and index cards were switched, so that references for parts were all mixed up." "Total chaos." "But there was a system of passive, or rather more active sabotage :" "the launch of a German torpedo boat for the German naval forces." "When the boat was to be floated out, the following happened :" "The cradle, which is used to float out a ship, was nailed shut, and the ship got stuck and could not reach the Scheldt." "Panic all around." "The next day, retaliation came." "German military police, the men with tags, took fingerprints of everyone who had been about the vessel." "And they examined every set." "Eventually, liberation came." "Now, still moored midstream were ships that normally would have been gone." "Number 1030-31, the "Tanger" and the "Hansburg"." "I can still see it before me." "Liberation had come." "We were outside, flags in our hands, when a tank came." "It was a German tiger tank, the soldiers with their hand grenades found their way to the quay and started attacking the ships." "They were either drunk or stupid, since they aimed above the waterline, in the ship's hull." "One grenade went right through a mast and damaged the ship." "A shot under the waterline would have destroyed the ship." "In no time, the ships were repaired, given new names, "Ardea" and "Alca", and transferred to Belgian shipowners." "Jef Boel flees to Argentina and is accused of smuggling foreign currency." "He dies in St. Gillis prison in Brussels." "Georges Van Damme picks up the pieces after the liberation." "He decorates the war heroes, yard numbers from the Zaat." "The shareholder runs the shipyard and becomes managing director." "The page with "collaboration" written on in Gothic script is quickly turned." "THE INDUSTRIAL EFFORT IN BELGIUM" "There's been much activity in the shipyard." "All hands are occupied with building, repairs and transformations." "Other ships, already completed, are having their interiors fitted out." "The Admiralty has returned a large cargo ship." "New sails are added, while the war equipment is removed." "The Belgian government and arms industries have placed big orders at the shipyard to replace ships lost in the war." "For Belgium participated greatly in the war at sea !" "Our officers and sailors won glory in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean." "The sacrifice of these heroes must not be in vain." "They fought to keep our country free and prosperous." "Today, we must concentrate our efforts on rebuilding the Belgium of their dreams in the maritime sector." "To work." "Our riches and our economic power depend, to a great extent, on our presence on all the seas of the world." "Technical director Van Dyck returns from the USA with a film and notes." "He gives lectures about welding techniques to the men of the Zaat." "WATCH OUT WHATEVER HAPPENS, THE BESTWILLWIN" "IT HAS NEVER BEEN ANY OTHERWAY" "You could put it this way :" "The occupying force taught us how to build sea vessels, and the liberators taught us how to weld." "In 1947, the first real sea vessel was built on their own initiative, with a carrying capacity of 3,000 tonnes." "It was 92 meters long." " Was that the "Nikola Vaptzarov" ?" "Right." "Number 1167." "People are still talking about it. "Nikola Vaptzarov"." "I have some excellent documentation here." "It was built for Bulgaria, for an Eastern Bloc country." "I have the principal measurements here." "It was 92 meters long." "This was the first vessel that was partly welded." "So, it was revolutionary ?" " To us, it was a revolutionary ship." "October 1947 sees the start of an 11 -week long general strike over pay, led by the fiery and charismatic, but unionless, Janneke Pan." "He was an assembler, respected as a skilled craftsman, but above all as a man of the people who wears his heart on his sleeve." "Georges Van Damme, the new Boel boss, formulated it this way :" ""They were all semi-communists."" "Right away, he offered the union delegation promotion." "Poachers make the best gamekeepers." "Before the war, the Belgian merchant fleet consisted of 100 vessels." "But the war took its toll and only 23 survived." "The Belgian government believed that a nation with Congo as colony should have a respectable fleet." "Shipowners receive advances and cheap loans to build ships." "The law of '48 sees the light of day." "In 1948, the shipbuilding industry was recognised as a national sector." "And what does that mean ?" "There were only four important sectors in Belgium :" "mines, steel, glass and shipbuilding." "The result was a huge expansion." "There have always been two important components :" "the Saverys' and Van Dammes' capital, and the government." "The government provided subsidies and loans and allowed credits." "The law of 1948 was a decent law." "Good use was made of it and it paid." "It brought prosperity to the region." "A shipowner is awarded a credit, which is a low interest loan over a long period of time, always to be repaid in full, with the ship as collateral." "They received 60, 70 or 80 percent, the remainder they paid themselves." "The new situation looks as follows :" "The government, the community, backs shipowners so they can build ships." "Times of great activity break out at the Zaat." "Fleet repairs and the Suez Canal crisis ensure the flow of new orders." "Billions pour in." "The wafer tongs policy of the Unitarian Belgium ensures that support to Wallonia for steel and coal results in equal support for Flanders." "The Boel shipyard continues to grow." "On the shipyard in Temse, a Russian girl in the company of film stars christens a new freighter, the "Stanislavsky"." "Ambassador Avilov is the guest of honour at this ceremony." "The 6,500-tonne cargo steamer glides majestically into the Scheldt." "The launch is a success and the personalities congratulate Belgium on this new construction." "Thanks to Russia, we could expand." "In five years' time, the Boel shipyard built 27 sea vessels for Russia." "So, communist Russia helped capitalist Belgium ?" "And I can prove it." "I happen to have this blueprint here." "The ships were getting bigger. 3,000 tonnes, 3,200 tonnes, 5,700 tonnes." "Among them seven trawlers, fishing craft which were factories in themselves." "The fish were even canned on board." "The whole process happened on board." " Here is my proof about the Russians." "In those days, we drew up the general blueprint." "The Russians really insisted on their hammer and sickle." "Valuable documents, these." "The ships were becoming larger." "Did the Russians pay well ?" "Good American dollars ?" "Of course, they were impeccable." "I'll tell you a story." "Tradespeople in Temse lived off Russia." "The ship's crew bought bicycles and learned to ride their bikes here." "They lifted pianos on board." "They bought lots of things." "They had money." "Thanks to those 27 seaworthy ships, we were able to grow." "In the shipbuilding world the subject is touched upon for the first time :" "Japan is entering the world market." "At a site on a narrow coastal strip it is already producing 10 percent of all ocean-going vessels." "But business in Temse is flourishing and nobody is really concerned." "A large labour-intensive concern, Boel shipyard continues to innovate." "Gradually, the worker too is enjoying increasing prosperity." "Shipbuilders hear that talent and commitment will be rewarded, that everybody can become president." "But the reality is different :" "He who is born a worker will die a worker, or at the very most a foreman." "No matter how clever or skilful a shipbuilder is, he is expected to know his place within the company, and not to meddle in work schedules, work methods and wage scales." "Sometimes he demands higher wages and more security, but he humbly accepts that others will decide on the content of his labour." "Class society does exist." "The worker begins to identify with his own class and is proud to be a worker." "The Song of the Coclked Helmet." "Jannelke Pan, a popular figure must now wear a helmet." "And as a former strilke leader, he says:" ""I shall put it on, as safety comes first"." "But then he loolks at his mates, with a wisdom that is born of years." "All around him the same helmet, the same overalls, a uniformity that he detests." "Just as he detests injustice, he finds it stupid, all this uniformity." "And so he sets his helmet at a slant." ""Together we are strong, oh yes, but not in anonymity."" "And so observing the safety applications, he wallks down the Zaat, for the rest of his worlkman's life," "Jannelke Pan wears his helmet at a slant, a free and radiant figure." "Scaffold builder-delegate Karel Heirbaut describes the first time he attended a works council meeting :" ""And then we, the delegates, heard the sound of trumpets blown by the angels, our managers, who had lined up in deference to the boss, Georges Van Damme." "There he stood, with the delegates looking pale and obsequious, like postcards on a wall." "None of them dared to sit down until the boss himself was seated."" "Then a new name :" "Mr. Philippe Saverys marries Georges Van Damme's daughter." "He soon joins the management." "In 1955, he becomes a member of the Board of Directors." "We are standing at a historic site." "This is the transversal slipway, which was used for the first time in 1958, for the launch of the "Promachos"." "The year 1958 was a historic moment for the shipyard." "A first structural expansion occurred with the launch of the "Promachos", a ship in the 19,500-tonne category, a lateral launch from a new slipway, the largest in the world." "You cannot launch a ship of 5,000 or 6,000 tonnes headfirst." "It would run straight into the dyke." "Therefore it was decided to launch it laterally." "It was unique in the world." "A big sensation." "I wish this ship, which I christen "Mineral Gent", safe travels." "I wish the crew, the shipowners and the shipyard lots of luck." "An inquisitive kayaker wanted to witness the whole thing." "When the action began and the ship was launched, it took an enormous amount of water with it, and one of those kayakers, in fact there was only one, landed on top of the..." "How do you call that again ?" "On the river bank." "He was simply lifted on the dyke." "I wanted to show the production process, how a ship is built from bow to stern, from keel to top of the mast." "The most revolutionary form of television is educational television !" "I had the shipbuilders-occupiers at the machines talking about their work, standing next to their now idle and silent machines." "I was struck by the way they talked in the present tense, as if nothing had changed, as if the machines were going to start up again." "This is the general blueprint with all the divisions." "A view of the deck with the gangways." "This is one section." "Here." "Behind us, the roller shears that cut the plates." "Over there, you have the venturi burner that burns the plates." "And over there, the plasma burner that burns the plates under water." "Using these shears, the plates are cut straight up or at a 30-degree angle." "The speed is ten to twenty metres per minute." "The helm, the helmrod, the steering gear, and here you see the shape of the ship, with the propeller." "Here you see one of the shelves in which the original drawings are kept and files with the original documents, which have to be kept as long as the ship is still in service." "What is kept behind these shelves may also be of interest to you." "Behind me, the big cylinder where the plates are being pressed and where the heavy plates are being joggled." "Over there, three hydraulic presses, two heavy ones and a lighter one." "One by one, four plates in this case, the plates are pressed, brought over here and spread on that jig." "The idea is to join the seams between the plates, such as this one here, with the utmost precision." "To give you an example :" "These two plates are not finished yet, since that seam over there is still open." "Here the plates and profiles are processed in the workshop, brought together and assembled into sections." "Behind me, you can see an example of a section." "The part of the ship that you see here is a double bottom and will serve as the ship's ballast tank." "Here you see a part of the double bottom." "With manholes to crawl through and the reinforced floor plates." "When the double bottom is finished, firstly the engine is installed." "Next, the side decks with all the equipment, pumps, compressors, all that is needed to keep the ship going." "The heaviest equipment is installed before continuing the assembly." "The end result of our efforts is, first of all, the ship's maiden voyage, along the Scheldt to the North Sea, where the navigation tests are held." "There are no empty pages in Boel shipyard's order book." "It is crammed full of yard numbers, now totalling more than two thousand." "New cranes, mills, investments in the plate plant..." "Champagne bottles smash against steel bows, and ship after ship slides into the Scheldt." "The years of poverty and child labour are over." "The shipbuilders live in decent houses and have become respectable consumers." "They buy more and more." "There is a wider range of goods in department stores." "Life is good, as shipyard and prosperity continue to grow." "There is music and a feeling that it will never end." "Little ship on the open sea, carry our wishes on the breeze." "Happy sailing while we yearn for your safety to return." "Most of the shipbuilders work for Boel shipyard and Cockerill Yards." "But there are also smaller shipyards building river vessels and coasters." "As well as ship repair yards." "Today, in 1969, there are about 8,000 people directly involved in shipbuilding and ship repairs." "And for every one job in shipbuilding there are three in supply companies." "It is a time when our country still has large labour-intensive concerns." "Production, industry and a large working population go hand in hand." "Shipbuilders are not faced with monotonous assembly line work." "Their work is varied and social." "Moreover, there is a wonderful final product, the ship." "Shipbuilders are not alienated from their work." "You can't compare a shipbuilder with any other worker." "They are used to building ships." "You can't expect them to go to work in some factory where they operate bench vices for eight hours." "They're not used to that." "I'll certainly miss my freedom and my workmates." "Here at Boel's, you could take time off to go to the toilet or to go for a walk, which is out of the question in a factory." "The Song of the Empty Recess Shelters" "They sat there eating sandwiches, the recess shelters next to the building-doclk." "The Kraut, Carrot Head and Dirty Boclk." "In winter it was never warm, with neither façade or door." "But they were together, the coffee hot, chatting :" ""Listen Moron, it was in the gazette."" "Drinlking cup after cup of coffee, relaxing, released from the thunder of machines." "Tall Verwaest, the Turlk, a man of few words." "In summer it was far too hot, with neither façade or door." "Sitting there, just sitting, helmets on the table, tool-box on the floor." "And for dessert :" "chocolate with hazelnuts." "Sometimes thinlking, never saying it :" ""Thanlk God, we can still bullshit each other."" "Jos Boel  Sons Shipbuilding Yards have recently become NV Boelwerf." "The Boel-Van Damme families are full shareholders." "There is no quotation on the Stock Exchange." "On the Board of Directors we find Jef Boel's children and managing director Georges Van Damme, as well as Philippe Saverys." "Philippe Saverys becomes director-general." "Remember, my son is a descendant of the Boel family." "His mother was called Van Damme and her mother was one of the Boels." "That makes my son a descendant of Frans Boel and other preceding Boels." "On 22 December 1969, there is a special shareholders' meeting of the Boel shipyard." "In 1969, several billions must have been made, since the one limited-liability company was split into four." "In addition to the shipbuilding firm, a firm of shipowners was established, as well as a hip chartering office and an insurance company." "So, we saw this as a sign that the bosses were putting their eggs in different baskets, to avoid the risk of losing all the eggs in one go." "When the boom in shipbuilding was over, in the sixties, there was the crisis of the seventies, decisions were made that were not..." "By the shareholders, people who had thought of the future and moved in a world of shipowners, not shipbuilders." "What is happening all over the world, is now happening in Temse." "The manager-shareholders are developing an economic patrimony and the affective link with the parent company will gradually fade, with every company in the group no more than a pawn in the game :" "replaceable and transferable." "You can always ask yourself what they have started." "The capital of the Saverys group was built up here." "Through all kinds of tricks and solid businessmanship, it was able to grow into an empire of which Boel's share unfortunately was reduced to some three percent." "It was no longer an indispensable component." "Perhaps they could have saved it, had nostalgic reasons played a part." "If human considerations had been taken into account and business motivations put aside," "Boel would probably have continued to exist." "But business motivations carry more weight than human considerations." "Why is it that a housewife's labour is economically worthless, whilst that of the soldier is economically valuable ?" "Why is a bar of gold worth more than a sheep ?" "It is confusing to question everything all over again." "In order not to founder on important issues as true worth and market value," "I concentrate on the small world of the shipbuilders :" "the occupiers, the gatekeepers, the security people, the delegates." "I thought that if I looked at their faces long enough," "I would learn to fully understand world economy." "The image of one man in particular came to mind." "I shall call him F." "There will be victims, friends." "I'd like to plead for solidarity." "I lined up the pictures of F." "and saw an active, noisy, humorous and socially involved activist." "An ordinary worker, the so-called man in the street, but one who will fight any injustice." "It is almost as if this gives him more stature, more power." "Work, that's all we ask." "Antwerp, the old harbour, quay 13, 27 October, 1995." "A ship was moored opposite the office of the family group Saverys-Van Damme." "Their shipping company, Exmar, had ordered the ship." "I had invited myself to film the launch of the "Kemira", job number 1546." "This is Boel shipyard quality, this is Made in Belgium, this is Made in Flanders, for which my sincere thanks." "For the first time in history, shipbuilders are also allowed to attend the reception." "For the first time, we have walked on carpets on a ship." "instead of crawling among the rubbish, over remnants of old iron, and so on." "But today we've come aboard in our fine clothes, without stumbling, together with the people of rank." "We intend to drink as much as possible to make the ship grow bigger." "END OF PARTONE" "PARTTWO :" "ELATION PARTTHREE :" "HANGOVER" "There is a song in my mind, one with a pretty forceful text." "I heard it and sang it at demonstrations." "It was written and first sung by the Boel shipyard's shipbuilders." "And now, even though the shipyard has gone, the song lives on." "One more thing :" "When you sing it, raise your left fist into the air." ""Hand in hand, comrades." "Hand in hand, the struggle goes on." "Not words but deeds." "We shall fight until we die"." "AS LONG AS SHIPBUILDERS KEEP SINGING" "PARTTWO :" "ELATION (1969 - 1986)" "Boel shipyard has been in existence for almost 150 years." "When the shipbuilders' families look back, they see their own past reflected in the walls, in the paving stones, and realise that their past is also that of their country and the world :" "economic growth, the rise of large modern industries, prosperity." "Since '48 the government has supported shipbuilding with cheap loans." "The shipyard is aware of growing competition from the Far East." "The company is now a part of a much larger economic patrimony." "I remember those turbulent, wonderful years." "I listened to the same records that were being played in Temse and we all watched the news on television and saw the same images." "Riots in the streets, the feminists." "No to the war in Vietnam, no to the arms industry at large." "No to colonialism and neo-colonialism." "No to multinationals." "I traced a poster in Indian ink of Che Ernesto Guevara on tracing paper and with the help of my father's blueprint machine, printed 13 posters." "My brother played in a local band, "The Rubber Baby Buddy Bumpers Band"." "In Temse, trade union activists leave the trade union headquarters." "They go on study tours to South America and attend Christian socialist meetings." "Like me, they wanted the world to start anew, as if the old one could come to an end." "A product of his class, the Zaat worker is full of self-confidence." "There are those who say : "There should be no such thing as profit, no such thing as labour for the sake of profit."" "They see reality in the light of the class struggle." "A banner bears the following words :" ""We don't want a piece of the cake." "Nor do we want the whole cake." "We want the bakery, lock, stock and barrel."" "On the yard the demands are usually more pragmatic." "They are focused on wage charts, industrial medicine and safety." "From '67 to '71 there are spontaneous demonstrations by the yard numbers against unhealthy and unsafe working conditions." "I remember the days when people were at work inside the double bottom, where there was no ventilation whatsoever." "They couldn't see who was working alongside them, because of the dust." "It was only logical that the unions demanded, for reasons of safety, the installation of ventilation." "It's but one example." "There are many more." "Any union action here affected other large companies in the Waasland area and eventually it spread nationally." "The bonus at the end of the year, the 13th month, was first obtained here." "The qualifying period was lifted here." "Asbestos, that stuff inside the EC buildings in Brussels..." "In the early 70's, it was agreed to ban asbestos from the yard." "When the scaffold builders called a strike over their own problems, it could cause other workers to be out of work, after a while." "But there was never any opposition." "When the crane drivers went on strike, and dock activities came to a halt, sometimes hundreds of others were obliged to go on the dole." "But we never had any hard feelings." "There was a special understanding." "Every three months, a ship was completed." "Each ship is a unique product, and that created a kind of closeness." "A mass-produced thing is much more distant." "You have to realise that some thirty or forty different types of trade had to be practised simultaneously on one object, the ship." "It's a complex situation, so there were conflicts regarding matters of safety and of health." "And if you know that someone is making billions here, it's your duty to stand up for your rights and to demand proper wages." "Once again I think back to the first time I drove to the shipyard in Temse." "I was sitting in the car wearing a Spanish beret." "Suddenly I was afraid that the workers would disapprove of my headgear." "I quickly pulled it off and left it on the passenger seat, and like a sinner, I faced the labour world bareheaded." "Later on, it was headgear that told me the story of this documentary." "The Song of the Hats and Caps" "Let us write this story with caps and stovepipe hats." "Each has his own way to cover up his bonce." "The little hat of the oil tanlker's angel delicately perched in her perfect hairdo." "The drummer's cap, the welder's helmet." "The visiting King's stainless snow-white helmet." "Those of the union men, red, green or blue, with sticlkers chanting slogans." "Your headgear gives away your ranlk." "Let us tallk about the hats and caps." "We are all proud of our headgear." "The one abides by rules, the others dictate." "In 1973, Boel shipyard concluded a contract for a 131,000 tonne methane tanker a dry dock was designed for building ships up to 180,000 tonnes." "The surface area of the yard doubled in size : from 40 to 85 hectares." "The dry dock was completed in 1977." "On 18 October 1977, the new dry dock was literally baptized with water." "On a technical level, Boel has now reached its zenith." "The dry dock is both a new start and an ending, as it is the last big investment to be made." "The "Methania", job number 1487, the largest gas tanker in the world, is the first ship to leave the dock." "The tiny tugboats keep pulling their heavy loads, towing yet another colossus to freedom." "Yet another achievement, greeted with enthusiasm." "From the new dock at Boel shipyard, Temse, the ancient river Scheldt and the nearby North Sea receive a newborn marvel of human genius, daring and skill." "There are signs of mistrust between employers and employees and there is little social quietude." "But when the yard numbers witness the new dry dock and the enormous ship, they put their trust in the simple fact that a growing concern such as Boel Shipyard Temse must be here to stay." "In 1976, following the building of a frigate for the navy, a private security firm, Intergarde, appears at the Zaat." "This results in the compulsory use of passes to enter the yard and canteen and surveillance of the gangways to the frigate." "At 10.00 a.m. every morning, for over a week now, 2,000 workers have demonstrated in the yard." "They're angry about the presence of two employees of Intergarde, a private security company." "Every morning, the wives support their husbands from behind the gate." "Strangely enough, this is not a matter of money." "It's a matter of principle." "We're a company that builds ships." "That's what we want to do, and efficiently so." "Extreme security measures only generate extra costs." "That's not what we want." "A person wearing a uniform is a deterrence in itself." "We don't need uniforms here." "We need people in whom we can trust, with whom we can cooperate." "We don't want people in a uniform who may disrupt union activities here." "We don't need help from Intergarde, we need extra representatives." "It's a pity that the matter has been blown out of proportion." "But we can't prove that something that does not exist, does not exist." "Comrades, the passes have been done away with." "Show it to the camera." "You don't need this anymore, not even to get your dinner." "I think we can say that we've forced the management to their knees." "We have full satisfaction." "Divide and conquer, that's what works for the bosses." "But here, there was unity among three different unions." "It was a unity that originated from the bottom, not from the top." "It came from the activists and representatives who chose not to be divided." "Whatever their political side, they were workers and would stick together." "On the one hand, the boss, Mr. Saverys or "Savve"" "wasn't all that pleased that a strong sense of unity was developing." "It proved the power of our movement." "But the truth is that the unions weren't too pleased either." "They wanted to divide and conquer too." "If we quarrelled, their position remained strong." "In 1977 the sound of militant songs and slogans is heard once more." "Besides an accumulation of numerous minor irritations, word has it that executives have been given bonuses up to 30 million, whilst workers have been asking a wage increase for over two years." "Social quietude is no longer possible and the strike of dissension breaks out." "Since March there have also been intermittent strikes at Cockerill." "The strike wasn't general." "Each trade on the shipyard had their own strike." "We couldn't function any longer." "If, for instance, the welders stop working, then the assemblers can't put sections together." "If the pipefitters stop fitting pipes, other activities become impossible." "The continuity is broken." " It was a vicious type of strike." "It would soon have led to a disaster for the company, since many people had to be paid who weren't working properly." "The result is a joint demonstration by Cockerill Yards and Boel shipyard." "The employers of both yards threaten with a lockout, which means employees will be turned out into the street." "The employer doesn't have to pay any further wages." "A general strike is called at Boel, with workers accepting the lockout." "They prevent office staff and executives from entering." "At Cockerill, the strikers yield to the lockout and return to work." "The lockout was indeed something that, in the years after the events, became somewhat akin to a pleasant memory for us." "The office employees had to work, but couldn't get in." "The workers were locked out, but they, in turn, kept the gates closed, so that we couldn't get in." "We worked out a solution, so that the 400 or 500 office clerks who were employed at that time could go to empty flats in Temse and Sint-Niklaas that we had rented." "We had also rented some halls." "They worked there for more than three months." "It was our way of trying to keep things rolling." "I remember we tried to break into the offices at night to get hold of documents and papers, and even of computers, which we already had." "We'd put them in a flat for someone to work with." "The Boel strike is one of this year's worst conflicts." "Four months of strike, two months of lockout, seven failed reconciliation attempts and finally an agreement." "Because of the special working conditions at shipyards, the workers are pretty radical." "The wage claims at Boel were partially backed by a radical ideology." "The conflict soon became a matter of principle and prestige." "Both unions and employers took up positions in the trenches and were determined not to give in." "150 YEARS OF BOEL SHIPYARD" "In 1829, Bernard Boel, in his small woodwork shop and forge, started building small vessels." "In the following century and a half, the shop grew into a huge company." "When Boel shipyard celebrated its 150th anniversary," "I put together my book:" "'Between head and rear'." "It's a photo album that shows the shipbuilders' daily lives." "The boss had planned to publish a fanciful book of beautiful ships, without the workers." "I said : "No way."" "Boel celebrates its 150th anniversary." "Even the Belgian King pays an official visit." "The King is informed of the problems in the Belgian shipbuilding industry." "The alarm is sounded, but the birthday cake is still cut." "We are facing the fact that Japanese wages are much lower than ours." "Japan has also recently invested heavily in its shipyards, making them much more efficient than ours." "The Japanese shipyards can negotiate much lower prices with their suppliers than we can obtain from our suppliers." "I don't see how we can possibly find a way to work as profitably as Japan." "The shipowner who orders the ships claims that Boel is up to 40%/ more expensive than Asian shipyards." "Without a compensation for the extra costs, the shipyard wouldn't survive." "We as shipowners, Exmar that is, placed an order for a ship that was very similar to the "Sombeke"." "The "Sombeke" was a 34,000 cubic meter ship, which was completed in 1990." "For that particular ship, the "Sombeke", the production costs for Boel shipyard amounted to..." "And as far as I can remember, Boel shipyard made a nice profit." "The production cost for Boel shipyard was 2.2 billion BEF." "2.2 billion BEF at today's dollar rate amounts to something like" "70 million dollars." "We have 70 million dollars at our disposal." "Recently, in October last year, we signed a contract stating the price that we actually pay to the shipyard." "It's 46 million dollars." "That's a difference of 24 million dollars." "The difference, in other words, if you consider the lower price, is more than 50%/." "If you compare it to Boel shipyard, it's a third." "Yes, a 35%/ difference." "It would be hard to ignore the fact that the price of these ships was artificially inflated." "And it wasn't just an inflation of 5 or 10%/." "It amounted to 30 or 40%/." "For instance, when a shipowner would order a ship here, up to 75%/ of the production costs of the ship" "could be borrowed at very favourable interest rates, maybe 2 or 3%/." "That money came from the community, the State, us." "The loans were then granted, the so-called soft loans, based on the inflated price." "Afterwards it became clear that the amount borrowed was equal to the overall value of the ship." "This, of course, leads to a very simple conclusion." "The NMKN, which is the State, not only handed out the loan that was authorized by the law of 1948, it also financed the shipowner's own contribution of capital, through the soft loan that was granted to the shipowner." "The funny thing is that the very same community, the same State that handed out this cheap money, had to borrow it from the banks at 7 or 8%/ interest." "They didn't lose money." "I won't say they took advantage of it, but they were given cheap credit for building their ships." "They could fix the price themselves, since they built and bought the ships." "We often couldn't believe our ears during the works council, when Mr. Saverys said he had some problem to discuss with the shipowner." "Saverys would simply seat Boel at the other side of the table, and then he'd carry on as the shipowner." "It didn't only happen here, other large shipyards are also shipowners." "NedLloyd in The Netherlands used to have their own shipyard." "And so did Bremer-Vulcan." "It wasn't unusual." "The Saverys' empire made its fortune building ships." "And now he no longer needs the yard." " Exactly, so it has to disappear." "I think he made a lot of money in two ways." "Firstly, through the labour of thousands of tradesmen." "Secondly, through the inexpensive money he got from the State." "We have paid back all that credit, and are continuing to do so." "We did not build our empire on that credit." "When you are granted a loan for building a ship, you use it to build that ship." "You can't spend it otherwise." "Private entrepreneurs were given free rein here at an early stage." "Of course they took what they could get." "Obviously, this system, which has been in use for a quarter of a century, cannot possibly function unless all parties involved agree on the rules." "The parties involved are the shipowners, the Boel shipyard, the State, both the federal government and later the Flemish government, and the NMKN." "If they're not all in the same boat, so to speak, the system doesn't work." "No one can plead innocence, they all knew exactly how it all functioned." "That does not imply that each party involved was in bad faith, or that they cheated." "That's a different matter." "However, the system was artificial to such an extent and so unadapted to economic reality, that it was wide open to fraud." "The figures, percentages of millions and billions made my head spin, it was not my world." "It was one big incomprehensible game with government, yard and shipowners." "Much worse, however, the game excluded the shipbuilders." "Their faith and labour were in the hands of others." "Dominique, Boel boss George Van Damme's son, is involved in a fatal accident with his own plane." "In 1979, the young Jos Boel also dies behind the wheel of his Porsche." "Georges Van Damme leaves the yard in 1980." "Philippe Saverys becomes chairman of the board and the new boss." "Besides life and death in the families of the bosses, there are also industrial accidents, which get much less attention." "In the heyday of the yard, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, it was a daily occurrence for a worker to be sent home with a serious injury." "An injury that would take several days, if not several weeks, to heal." "Obviously, working in a shipbuilding yard, is a job that entails many risks." "I always say that a ship is built with fire." "It's welded together, there are grinders and burners everywhere." "A lot of electrical tools are used :" "220 volt hand tools and 380 volt machines for the heavierjobs." "There's oxygen, natural gas, argon." "That makes a ship a dangerous object." "Many different types of energy are brought to the ship, and many people as well." "Sometimes hundreds of people." "They're in a dangerous situation, with all that energy." "All day long, you're in a tank or in the bilge, the sun beating down on it." "In summer, it's extremely hot, in winter, it's too cold." "It's never right." "A shipyard is always at odds with the weather." "The welding that we did was very tough work." "Large amounts of energy were carried to the welding bath." "If you happened to stare into the bath by accident, you'd have actinic conjunctivitis fifteen minutes later." "In the construction that is going on at present," "I've heard of several accidents happening." "Lethal accidents." "One year, there'd be no fatalities, the next year, we'd have two." "Were the skippers the tough guys ?" " They were a special breed." "They were a free-spirited bunch, they held on to their rights." "They were an independent entity within the whole." "They were on their own." "They got away with everything." "See that coal stove ?" "There was a general strike over that." "The stoves were banished from the workshops." "This one's still here." "The Song of the Coal Stove" "The representative Victor Nelen writes with irony and disbelief:" ""They even went on strilke for the preservation of an old coal stove."" "At their headquarters, the slkippers resist all reason." "And gather around the warmth of the coals." "The slkippers reject modernisation." "Immune to fire, these men had stored their dignity in a stovepipe." "They couldn't care less about the world's centrally operated heating." "At their headquarters, the slkippers resist all reason." "They gather around the warmth of the coals." "The slkippers reject modernisation." "Even certain unionists say: "They're going too far, this is excessive."" "A coal stove is not in lkeeping with the common interest." "These slkippers are merely obstinate!" "I had read about the tree in the People's Court." "About the silent witness to the great strike of 1981." "I wanted the representatives of the social struggle at that time to come together again by the tree." "All is not well with Boel shipyard." "There are too few orders and the cost price of ships is too high." "Management wants to reduce production costs by 10 to 20%/ to attract foreign markets once more." "The number of employees at the Zaat will have to be reduced, starting with the loss of 200 jobs." "Finally, on 13 April 1981, 128 workers receive their notice through the post." "The yard numbers respond : strike." "The strikers meet regularly in the People's Court." "The microphone is always open and everyone is free to air his views." "Comrades, friends." "Especially in spring and in summer, this beautiful tree was the symbol of the workers' opposition in 1981 against the lay-off of 128 labourers." "This tree, with its high crown, its powerful trunk and its far-reaching roots, as a symbol of life, was a witness to a workers' struggle that lasted for months." "I can remember the open mike, on this very spot." "It symbolized democracy, tolerance and solidarity." "I remember the union representatives, the mouthpieces and interpreters of all workers at the shipyard." "This tree and this open mike, surrounded by the militant unionists, represented unity at the Boel yard." "This was combative unionism, comrades." "I also know that they were aware both of their rights and their duties as workers and shipwrights." "I want to finish by greeting you, mighty and beautiful tree." "Greetings, shipwrights, pioneers of the united struggle." "Greetings, shipyard." "The men salute you." "Until we meet again." "IMAGES FROMTHE 'SMALL TELEVISION'" "Boel shipyard wasn't the only place where cutbacks were proposed." "He gave us a choice :" ""Either you accept a 10%/ cut in wages, or I'll lay 250 people off." "250 workers."" "It was an impossible choice for us to make." "On the one hand, it would mean that he went on making profits using the money of the community." "On the other hand, we had a labour agreement that distinctly guaranteed job security, more specifically for all the metal workers of the Waasland region." "We kept proposing a possible solution." "We were willing to economize, but not directly through wage cuts." "We were willing to accept alternating unemployment, if work was scarce." "We also thought that early retirement at the age of 55 was acceptable as a one-off emergency measure." "There was no need for lay-offs." "And so we went on strike." "We had no other option." "Negotiations were useless, the boss wasn't prepared to make any kind of concession." "We, the workers, decided that we had only one weapon left, and that the time had come to use it :" "total, general strike." "DISCUSSIONS ATTHE GATE BETWEEN WORKERS ON STRIKE" "AND NON-STRIKING OFFICE STAFF AND MANAGEMENT EMPLOYEES" "I think it's a shame that we have to picket here to keep you people out." "You are employees just like us, you work for the same bosses." "If they kick you out tomorrow, you're also finished." "Then you can join us." "You'll realise your mistake and say :" ""It's a mistake to believe this boss, he made promises and fired us anyway."" "I think it'll hit you harder then than it hits us." "Because we already realise what a crook he is." "If you're the boss, and you have work for 1,000 men, you don't keep 2,000." "You divide the work." " By going on the dole ?" "We're entitled to it." " I think that's totally unfair." "What can we do, knock them dead ?" "You're just trying to make yourselves look good, mingling with the workers." "Absolutely not, Marcel." " You're just ticking us off." "That's what you're doing." " You must have some intention." "You must have a reason for being here." " At the front gate as well." "You can't fool us that easily, you know." "You're on a mission." "Then why don't you say so ?" "We know why we're here." "We all have a mission." " But ours is an honest one." "You're just trying to find some non-strikers and to bring them in." "It's not going to work." " That's not what I'm trying to do." "I know it's your mission here, Theo." "You just won't admit it." "They're not just laying people off at Boel, it's all over Belgium." "But all you people can see, is Boel." "Your first demand should not be to re-employ the 128 workers." "Instead you should question the working conditions at the shipyard." "That is a reasonable, human demand." "It should come first." "Wait, let me finish." "I'd like to hear what you have to say to your boss." "That'll be a different story." " I'll give him my honest opinion." "It'll be an opinion that agrees with his." "No doubt about it." "It's something you have to respect." " We've been on strike for 11 weeks." "That's more expensive than those 128 employers, even for five years." "For those millions of francs, they could've kept the 128." "But that's not the issue." "He wants to break the unions' action." "That's all." "THE EMPLOYER ENTERS INTO A CONFRONTATION WITH THE STRIKERS" "My comrades don't have to strike on my behalf, but they must realise that he's going to fire more people." "The letter of resignation, after so many years, is heartbreaking." "I've always tried to do what I thought I had to do." "Even when on the dole," "I'll try and fight for the community, and certainly for the people of Boel." "OFFICE EMPLOYEES AND EXECUTIVES BELIEVE IN THE NECESSITY OF CUTBACKS" "AND DEFY THE PICKETS" "The management saved neither time nor expenses, nor manpower, to eventually break the strike." "He mobilized about a hundred executives to go and put pressure on people, to try and recruit them." "A telegram was sent to each Boel worker, an operation which cost 450,000 BEF." "He had loads of money at his disposal." "People, or executives, as well." "He also sent for the police." "In other words, he launched massive attacks." "But all workers managed to withstand them." "STRIKERS'WIVES VISIT MR. SAVERYS' RESIDENCE" "It was unpleasant : death threats in the middle of the night by telephone." "Sometimes drunk voices, sometimes it was a mean woman's voice." "They worked for a company that was run by a family of shareholders, by owner-managers, in other words." "They were ideal opponents, in a way, since the workers knew that the opponent would put up a fight." "They weren't dealing with some anonymous holding, but with a family whose company had been in business for over a century." "And the unions knew that the family would fight back." "Many members of the unions and many journalists still believed that Saverys was a belligerent boss." "But he was belligerent only because he had far more problems with the unions than other bosses." "It was never my intention to add fuel to the fire, on the contrary." "I've always tried to pour oil on troubled waters, to try and calm the waters." "FREE RADIO STATION ON THE SHIPYARD" "This is Radio Solidarity with the social news program." "Stay tuned to 100.25 megahertz." "Radio Solidarity is not political." "It's supported by the united unions" "ACV, ABVV and ACLVB." "It's a refutation of the lies and the deceptions that the boss has spread in the press through his newspapers and through his own weekly, "De Zaat"." "If we have to wait for work that he's going to acquire, or that the State will give him, then there's no solution for the 128." "We think the work should be divided." "Temporary unemployment is an easy solution to the problem." "I think that shipbuilding is going through a serious global crisis." "The present government doesn't have sufficient means to support the Belgian shipbuilding industry to such an extent that it can compete with foreign industries." "That is why we have to economize within our own industry." "That's something you never hear on television." "And that's why this conversation is now over." "What a sore loser." "Workers is what we are." "And when we're at work, comrades, we don't want to be slaves." "106 minutes of film of the 1981 strike were received from Gerhard Coddens of "The Small Television", a filmmaker who had been filming the strike for months." "It was a time when some believed in a different kind of television." "The song of the small television." ""To exist is to resist, " says the small television malker." "He offers the worlker his own television and writes in red letters:" ""I film whatever I feel I have to."" "Those who worlk for major television boast on excellence, great precision, but are doomed to miss the target, to film cautiously, without vision." "When the image of the small television starts to quiver too much, its trembling is only with the heartbeat of the strilkers, their involvement, the blessing of a full life." "Those who worlk for major television pride themselves on excellence, but are doomed to miss their target." "Finally, the film of the small television malker is complete." "It tells a lengthy story." "Nervously he shows it to the audience." "And then a local journalist aslks questions." ""I film whatever I feel I must film, " answers the small television man," ""All I do is filming and that's it."" "Neither the employers nor the union leaders believed by now that a strike without any gain..." "The Boel workers had a reputation of never being satisfied." "Actually, we were easily satisfied." "What we couldn't accept, however, was the laying-off of people." "We've always believed that money is negotiable, but not people." "Nobody believed that in a situation with nothing to gain, except losses, we would put up such a struggle for five months, for 128 workers." "The constructive work, the discussions with workers and activists, the efforts to convince people, that, to me, was the best part of the strike of 1981." "A fine example of our united activities was the march for the 128." "By 22 August 1981 the strike has been going on for about four months and Temse is proving too small to cope with the huge amount of solidarity." "Representatives from Cockerill Yards are of course present, too." "Boel would like to join forces with Cockerill." "Many of their delegates want a strike, too." "It's not a problem for Boel, it's a problem for us all." "Either we win together, or we go down together." "As a union and as a strike committee, we cannot accept that a labour agreement would be broken." "We can't accept that despite the money that was raised by the community, us, and that has been given to the bosses by the billion, we can still get the sack." "No way." "A few reminders, to begin with." "First of all, this is not a strikers' meeting." "This is a concentration..." "If I do not happen to agree with what is being proposed by certain people, it doesn't mean that I want to break this strike." "On the contrary." "I'm trying to defend the workers' interests, those of the unionist organizations and those of the community." "I'm trying to find a solution to this strike, in the best way possible." "And Sunday was a day of rest." "The tree in the People's Court heard neither strikers nor slogans." "The river Scheldt continued to flow past Temse, the ringing of the bells had a friendly sound, and for a moment a history without a social struggle seemed possible." "Union leaders mainly want to prevent" "Cockerill Yards Hoboken and Boel Shipyard Temse from joining forces." "The unions would rather have social rest than unrest." "Some time in 1981, the lay-offs were being proposed." "Later it appeared that it had been an attempt at breaking the strike, by our own provincial federations." "They wanted to cover up their unwillingness to let both Boel and Cockerill go on strike." "They knew Cockerill would fold, we didn't." "They broke this strike in order to close Cockerill down and to not have two large companies closing at the same time." "That would've created even more social upheaval." "MINISTER DEWULF PRESENTS A RECONCILIATION PROPOSAL" "THE EMPLOYEES WILL HOLD A REFERENDUMON THE PROPOSAL" "Let it be "no"." "Let's say "no", let's not abandon our friends." "Not now or ever." "All of us : "No, no, no."" "62.5%/ OF THEWORKERS PRESENT VOTE AGAINSTTHE PROPOSAL" "AND THUS FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THE STRIKE" "THE STATUTORY MAJORITY OF 65%/ REQUIRED BY THE UNION" "HAS NOT BEEN REACHED" "THE UNION MANAGEMENT DECIDES NOT TO SUPPORTTHE STRIKE ANY LONGER" "The strike committee will continue the strike." "We know that the national managements of the metal workers' unions don't agree with that." "We know that they are debating whether they will acknowledge this strike." "It has to do with the fact that today they're probably going to decide to stop paying out the strike benefit." "We pay our contributions to the union, so it owes us the strike benefits." "If they refuse to do that, it amounts to forcing people into starvation." "It's a well-known trick of the bosses, trying to force people to their knees by cutting off the money." "From a boss, you can expect that, it's nothing new." "But today, the union management is acting very ambiguously." "They're applying the bosses' tricks, to bring us down by taking our money and our food." "We don't accept the decision taken by the union management." "We ask them in no uncertain terms to reconsider that decision." "This is an issue that will make or break us." "And I'm sorry to say, however painful it is, that our very own unions may have contributed to our possible defeat." "It's a pity that..." "It's here by this tree in the People's Court that the strike started." "And it's here that it's coming to an end." "Without funds the strike is no longer tenable." "The strikers and their leaders realise that they've lost the social struggle." "Those who make decisions on money, patronage and unions are the winners of the five month conflict." "The gap between official union leaders and militants has never been so wide." "ON 8 SEPTEMBER," "UNION REPRESENTATIVEJAN CAP ADDRESSES HIS FRIENDS :" "The strike committee has unanimously decided to call the strike off." "The reason is that the union has literally stabbed us in the back by no longer acknowledging the strike and cutting off the strike benefit." "The strike committee rejects the Dewulf proposal and will continue to struggle with all means at our disposal in the yard." "To all those who were on strike :" ""Thanks."" "The signal sounds for the morning shift, the yard siren summons." "The shipbuilders are going to build ships once more." "Ships as high as a tower block and as long as a street." "Here at Boel shipyard, everyone feels what's coming :" "This is the beginning of the end." "An ending is never final, it'sjust a new beginning." "Each ending is never final, it'sjust a new beginning." "In the life that we've been given, our hope will become a reality." "An ending is never final, it'sjust a new beginning." "From oppression, comrades, we've been lifted together." "No more begging, no more trembling, we don't bow to masters anymore." "We no longer complain in vain, labour becomes its own ruler." "The yolke we'll no longer carry, we don't bow to masters anymore." "The industrial shipbuilding sector is in full crisis :" "redundancy, cutbacks, increased subcontracting and very few orders." "Let's take Cockerill Yards, where the biggest shareholder is the government." "During the eighties, the European shipbuilding industry was extremely weak." "All shipyards were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy." "The only yards that survived were those with the backing of a group." "Yards that stood on their own, like Cockerill Yards, went down." "9 FEBRUARY 1982:" "COCKERILL YARDS IN HOBOKEN GOES BANKRUPT 1,860 SHIPWRIGHTS ARE OUTOFWORK" "THATSAME NIGHT THEWORKERS OCCUPY THE YARD" "The government wants a solution to the problem of new unemployment and wants to complete the ships so as not to jeopardise repayment of loans." "Negotiations with the owners of Boel shipyard commence." "We were appointed as volunteers, so to speak, to restart Cockerill Yards in 1982." " Are you being cynical ?" "We had no choice." "The support authorized by the law of 1948 would have been withdrawn if we had refused to restart the yard at Hoboken." "The owners of Boel shipyard Temse get a major share in Cockerill Yards as well as guarantees for loans." "In exchange, they'll take over a number of employees with the government as joint owner of the merger company." "The government enters the Board of Directors and holds 49%/ of the shares." "The continued existence of the yard depends fully on government aid." "The shipbuilding dossier remains a highly political affair." "There's not enough employment for all Cockerill workers." "The management immediately gets rid of a few assertive militant figures." "However, the take-over of Cockerill doesn't improve the situation." "Competition with the Far East becomes ever more difficult." "It's a struggle for survival now." "The big ones eat the small ones." "Social elections at Boel in Temse." "Jan Cap is not a candidate, for the first time in 15 years." "He's been dismissed as chief representative of the ACV and was told that he couldn't run as a candidate in these social elections." "26 of the 34 ACV-activists at Boel showed solidarity and refused to nominate other candidates." "The management of the Christian metal workers' union dissolved the group." "Before that, 90%/ of the Boel workers had voted for Jan Cap in a poll." "That's how democratic the unions are today." "They ignore all of this." "They don't want to answer to the basis nowadays because they're afraid of their own members." "They'd rather dismiss them." "That is today's painful paradox." "If the boss fires you, we have the means to fight it." "But eventually, in the capitalist production system, the boss decides whether you stay or go." "But today, we're actually being fired by union managers whose salaries we pay." "We won't accept it." "In those days, I went to see several union managers." "Including Jef Houthuys." "He told me that I suffered from "Jan Cap syndrome"." "I replied that it was they who had Jan Cap syndrome, not I." "And that we suffered from their syndrome." "The leaders of the day tried to transfer their political ideals to the social movement." "In order to achieve this, they constantly pushed the limits." "For 39 years, I have been an activist in the Christian labour movement, in Catholic youth and adult movements, socio-cultural movements, in the union." "I've learnt a lot, I've gained a lot of experience." "As a volunteer, never as a professional." "He gradually turned into a genuine anarchist." "A Trotskyist, if you will." "He went for permanent revolution, never-ending revolution." "1 May in Brussels." "I spent some time wandering around my neighbourhood." "I wanted to hear speeches and see red flags waving." "But instead I saw a fair and sausages being grilled." "The only red I saw, were the ketchup buckets." "Nor was there anything remotely socialistic about the brass band." "I began to think about the labour celebrations and about labour in the world, but I couldn't find a cause for celebration." "They kick out the people who defend the workers." "So why should I vote for the union, for the ABVV ?" "They're not with the workers now, they're with the bosses." "I am a militant unionist indeed." "But I don't believe that a company only exists for fighting out battles." "There has to be a distinction between the time to fight and the time to negotiate." "To us, the union is the militant organization of the workers." "The union has to try and find an alternative to the present economy." "Simply negotiating is not enough." "We shouldn't ignore that there is an enormous difference between the origins of the labour union and its present situation." "If at the union's origins, it was said that the worker had nothing to lose except his chains, then that was totally true." "But whether that logic can be applied today in the same way, strikes me as improbable." "In general, the material situation of the worker has changed, improved." "But most of all, I think that the labour union movement has taken up a certain responsibility within economic policy." "We've claimed that responsibility." "It can be a problem within a structured movement." "Inside the union building, you can speak freely and sharply, and your criticism will ring like a bell." "But when you leave the meeting room, when you face a group of workers outside, you have to behave totally differently." "You have to mind your words and be rather diplomatic, and not criticize all that much." "You have to cover things up, see both sides of the medal, twist and turn." "We don't want to twist and turn, we want a straight line." "The exposure of the employers was one thing." "But the main thing was the exposure of the union management, who played the wrong political game as far as corporate economy, social partnership and social peace were concerned." "Today we can see what it has led to." "The unions, of course, weren't all that pleased." "I had written about the "union mismanagement"." "That was reason enough to dismiss me as a representative at Boel." "We have never..." "This is why we can hold our heads high." "We have never allowed ourselves to be led by profit or by favours." "Not by anything that political parties or unions make use of to cripple opposition and to silence people." "On 10 February 1986, chairman Philippe Saverys addresses the works council :" ""World-wide the general situation in shipbuilding is not promising." "From 1974 onwards, annual production has dropped from 35 million to 12 million tonnes, and the European share in this dwindling market has decreased from 35 to 16%/."" "The employer wants more flexibility and an increase in loans in order to offer potential clients, more favourable financing conditions." "Shipowners are able to take out a loan for 85%/ of the cost price of a ship, at an interest rate of 2%/." "Under pressure of the European guidelines for capacity reduction, the government wants restructuring, which is the same as reduction." "1,000 yard numbers, or one out of three, are to be made redundant." "As early as 1985-1986, when this company was already in serious trouble, we told the government :" ""If you think that it'd be better to dismantle the shipbuilding industry, let's do it together."" "In 1986, I had explicitly asked two ministers :" ""Shall we carry on or quit ?"" ""If we have to quit, we'll do it properly, but we'll need your help."" "The so-called "naked dismissals" could have been avoided, by continuing to build ships during the process of dismantling." "Until the final day." "The answer was: "No, keep going."" "But then we needed a firm policy, not the haggling that was always going on." "The files that were to be completed in six weeks took six months, sometimes much longer." "It just wouldn't work." "What Flanders received, Wallonia had to receive." "We often had to wait for credit until there was a similar case in Wallonia." "It was an absurd situation." "A shipowner builds a ship because he needs it now, not in the future." "They are totally right in that respect." "And the world of politics is its own world." "You needed the ministries of Finance, Traffic and Budget." "You needed at least three ministers, not necessarily of the same party or of the same region." "What moved me the most, was what happened in 1986." "A complete restructuring of the shipbuilding industry was imposed, and around one thousand people were laid off." "In 1981, we were obliged to take over Cockerill Yards, with its 1,000 employees whom we didn't need." "For years on end, we did our utmost to find work for them, and in 1986 the then minister of Traffic, Mr. Decroo, told us :" ""There's way too many of you, you have to lay off 1,000 people."" "Another thing which happened then is what I call the unionist massacre." "About 30 or 40 of the very best activists and representatives were thrown out on the street." "That was a tragedy for each of those workers, but the unionist spirit and vitality were dealt a particularly lethal blow." "It was done with the knowledge and approval of the union." "Union leaders have accepted the reduction proposals and claim that they have no other choice if they are to save the Zaat." "The redundant successors to militant trade union action, however, are up in the crow's nest to proclaim the truth to the world one last time." "From now on the secretaries representing the union leaders give form to the social movement at Boel shipyard." "Union policy is established outside the yard." "The word "struggle" is deleted." "Social consultation, dialogue, partnership and discipline, those are the new union words." "At the Boel shipyard general meetings you don't see any activists any more, only the union secretaries." "The open microphone is not quite so open..." "I came to the conclusion that the secretaries, the unions, dictated to us what should be done." "We weren't allowed to have an opinion." "They have the money, the information, so they do the negotiating." "If democracy stands for chaos, and if demonstrating means smashing windows and street fighting, then they've got it all wrong." "We've proved that our manner of demonstrating, which was more like a determined walk, which we did everywhere, means more than a fight." "Fighting gives you a bad name in the press." "The activists and the union representatives of the old style have to move on with the times." "In the old days, you'd have the opportunist career man, yelling and demanding changes." "Nowadays, you find that most companies have a legal staff on the payroll." "They want to know the law to the letter : "What can we take, what can we not take ?" That's why the unions have to change and provide more training for representatives and activists." "José, former chief delegate and one of the most fervent Boel activists, spoke to me contemptuously about present-day union demonstrations :" ""The way these trade unionists walk around, dressed in plastic bags in the colour of their unions." "That's not a sign of union solidarity." "It's more like a pageant or carnival." "That's divide and rule in front of the television cameras."" "José told me how the delegates of the three unions at Boel shipyard put their union advertisements into one brown envelope." "For them union solidarity means the obliteration of all political colour." "I looked at José and saw a firm belief in solidarity, in true unity within the union." "When you read today's pamphlets, even at social elections, the major issue is always employment." "Employment above all else." ""People come first." The mottos are pretty, the declarations of love are many." "But there is little love." "What's the conclusion?" "Let them sit down and think." "They'll have to prove credibility, they'll need a different structure." "They'll need to establish a much deeper and practical solidarity, instead of all those words." "Otherwise we'll all perish in our own fields." "Maybe that's what they prefer." "I doubt it, that's not why the union was born." "They should bear in mind that we don't fight only to die in our own fields." "Sometimes I thinlk baclk to the days when I was a young apprentice and heard someone spealking." "His words to a full room hit me lilke a bolt of lightning." "I dranlk his words." "Sometimes I thinlk of my membership of that movement with Jan Cap, for that was his name." "I experienced so much beauty while fighting for the liberation of all proletarians." "END OF PARTTWO" "PARTTHREE :" "HANGOVER" "On the quayside in Temse there is a monument commemorating the quay men, the men who loaded and unloaded river vessels with their bare hands." "They were notorious beer drinkers." "One of them could down 6 pints in the time it took the clock to strike the noon hour." "They should erect a new monument on the same quayside, a group sculpture depicting the shipbuilders, the yard numbers." "When I started this film, the shipyard had been occupied for five months, and that was a long time, too long." "Many yard numbers no longer believed the company could be saved." "AS LONG AS SHIPBUILDERS KEEP SINGING" "This is how it started :" "Around the Boel shipyard in Temse a community of working men rose up who would later call themselves workers, employees or executives." "Wooden boats became ships of steel, river vessels ocean-going ships and ordinary cargoes sophisticated gas tankers." "Boel shipyard Temse grew thanks to good entrepreneurship and hard labour, and the help of the government, which had supported shipbuilding since 1948 with cheap loans for shipowners." "Today, Temse is no longer a world of shipbuilders." "Most wage earners are no longer shipbuilders and no longer call themselves workers." "Although their labour is not freer or more meaningful, they no longer think of working class, class struggle, or solidarity." "It's each man for himself." "Man believes that he is master of his own destiny, and that he can provide himself with a good future." "PARTTHREE" " HANGOVER (1986 - 1997)" "The Boel ships were too expensive and competition from Asia was too strong." "Despite quality and a great technical know-how, foreign orders stayed out." "The shipyard owners, the Van Damme-Saverys families, explored other markets : shipowning, harbour activity, financial services." "Boel shipyard now depends on orders of the family's own shipping company." "And this shipping company makes its orders dependent on shipping loans, the advantageous government loans." "There were dismissals, the great Cockerill Yards went bankrupt, and Boel shipyard Temse fell partially into government's hands." "...were obliged to apply for a composition." "January." "At a press conference at Boel shipyard, the employers announce they will file for bankruptcy, but it is averted at the very last minute." "We were summoned to 16, Wetstraat." "There we were welcomed by a few ministers." "We told them about all of our troubles, and they finally released everything they had blocked before." "Including, amongst other things, a sum of 2 billion Belgian francs." "Not only credits to Boel shipyard, but also to some of our clients." "Only on 15 June, the yard starts building ships again." "Philippe Saverys resigns, abandoning the sinking ship." "Management distances itself more from the shipyards." "Boel shipyard is only one company of the Almabo-Exmar group, owned by the Saverys-Van Damme families." "But this is also a story of social struggle." "At Boel shipyard, strikes could last for months." "Often the issue was not only wages or safety, but also fundamental demands concerning the right to work, industrial medicine, division of work and subcontracting." "The shipbuilder became more prosperous and had more and more free time." "And yet, some wanted to commemorate the role of the worker in society." "In their eyes, labour shouldn't be used for profit." "They wanted a spontaneous and democratic union." "This resulted in a conflict with the employer and the official union, not wanting to question the economic system that brought this prosperity." "Sometimes I would simply wander around the 85-hectares wide yards." "The occupiers rarely showed up in the working areas, having no wish to see the machines." "Instead they stayed in "Den Es" or in the gatekeeper's lodge." "It would not be correct to speak of emptiness when there were machines, stacks, and full warehouses everywhere." "I saw movements that were not there, I heard sounds that were not there." "The Song of the Pin-Up Girls In the Empty Worlking Place" "As a child I saw them in the garages on the bare briclk walls, in the worlk shed of bicycle repairmen, next to rims and inner tubes." "But not visible on the deslks of executive members and managers, hidden in a drawer with a loclk." "They leer, they don't loolk." "Worlkers, listen." "On your baclks as much money's earned as on their bums." "Without your sandwiches and thermos flaslks their four-colour prints would have a lonely and miserable life." "So sing : pin-up girls and worlkers, a united front." "The cut-out photos lilke windows without embrasure, an even better view than of mountains, forest and sea." "Now that I am alone in this deserted worlkshop, now that the machines are silent, sadness envelops me." "Worlkers, listen." "On your baclks as much money's earned as on their bums." "So sing : pin-up girls and worlkers, a united front." "The cellotape is coming loose here and there and dried out." "I should drape these photos with a mourning cloth." "Loolk at them here, doing nothing, slowly yellowing, out of place." "With only me to loolk at them, now so distressingly bare." "Worlkers, without your hustle and bustle, these images have a lonely and sad destiny." "So, stay together, pin-up girls, worlkers sticlk together." "Twenty years ago, they took the wrong decision of dropping the shipyard and investing the money elsewhere." "I believe the government should have acted then, also in relation to the owners." "It is true that the major investment, in the period from 1975 to 1980, and I am referring to the large dry dock with all the workshops, was the last spectacular investment that we made." "We couldn't invest what we didn't have." "We did invest large sums when the shipyard was still profitable." "After that we continued to invest, but with borrowed money." "And eventually we couldn't find any more money to borrow." "Withdrawing money, not investing, projects that were financial disasters..." "Such as ?" " Take the example of the "Yatzy"." "That's a drilling rig that can move and look for oil fields independently." "It works." "It is in use at the moment." "And with good results." "The know-how that went into the rig is unique." "The rig was built." "However, the construction was a financial disaster, and that is one of the reasons why it all went wrong." "Boel shipyard starts a unique and ambitious project that will show its technical know-how and might open up a new market." "But the construction of the mobile drilling rig "Yatzy" is slow, and faced with the delays, the client backs down." "Yet another prestige project fails :" "a car ferry for the Ostend-Dover line." "Nine months delay and a loss of half a billion Belgian francs." "It is interesting if you can build a series of five to ten ships, because the tenth ship will be cheaper to build than the first one." "That was the disadvantage of certain projects, such as the oil rig "Yatzy", such as the "Prins Filip"." "They were prototypes, unique projects that required a great deal of research and had very high quality standards." "Whilst Boel shipyard acquires international quality labels, the yard teeters on the brink of bankruptcy." "Our know-how is immense." "Other shipyards may be cheaper, but you simply cannot compare their ships with ours." "A Lada is not a Mercedes." "Our Belgian ships are Mercedes, while abroad they build Ladas." "It was our policy to try and maintain our technological lead." "The type of ships we built, shipowners didn't dare to buy in Japan or Korea, because they didn't trust the quality." "In Japan, you can have accommodation for 15 crew members, not for 16." "We could build ships for 16 people." "We built what you wanted." "Move that ladder 10 inches ?" "Consider it done." "Not so in Japan." "Or else you pay double the price." "We had some ships here that were built in Japan that came in for repairs." "When we then saw how those ships had been built, and to think that they had been approved by the same surveyors, one must say that our own quality standards were a cost for us." "And it goes without saying :" "Surveyors who came to Boel on a regular basis, knew our quality standards and demanded nothing less from us." "So, as time went by, in fact we forced ourselves to produce a higher quality than what was needed." "At the moment, profits prevail." "Don't make that ship too strong, make it a little cheaper." "Profits are higher then, and large companies write the ship off in ten, fifteen years, anyway." "The moment the ship needs structural repairs, a new motor or whatever, it is sold to a smaller company that can't afford a new ship." "So the ship gets sold three or four times." "The ship mustn't be too solid, it must earn as much as possible." "If you can build it for half a billion less, no problem, it will survive its ten to fifteen years." "And the money is in the pocket." "I thought of the occupiers who still maintain all this and see to the yards so that all that can start up again at any time." "At least twice a week, yard number 2,469 walks around the offices of the eight-storied building." "He hears the hum of a neon light and the sound of his own footsteps." "He sees the pencil left lying on the drawing board, the bottle of Tipp-Ex with its cap still open." "Time has suddenly stood still here." "He waters the plants." "It might seem excessive, this concern for an indoor plant, but people are caring by nature, and water the plants." "Driving back from Temse, I think about how unprofitable caring is, and how successful wastage is." "I imagine the following situation :" "I crash the car into a tree..." "Breakdown lorry, doctors, garage, insurance and a new car." "I can go home to my wife and say :" ""I have got some good news !" "Today I made a big contribution to the growth of the gross national product."" "The Song of the Melting ice" "There is a lot I have forgotten, but I lknow of freezing cold weather and the thaw." "Do I not pass by a prosperous country, rich in fauna, dancing, music and flora ?" "With people as pure as pebbles in the sand ?" "Or am I melting and dreaming of times long gone, that will never return ?" "Boel shipyard specializes in the construction of ships requiring high levels of technical know-how." "The "Yatzy" oil rig was one example." "Another is this "Chaconia"." "It's the third liquid gas tanker, with a capacity of 25,000 cubic meters." "Boel shipyard's strategy turned out to be a success, with orders up to 1992." "Its 1,800 workers were sure of their jobs, with a bright future ahead." "But what did the new laws on ship financing hold in store ?" "There's still hope in these hard times with European interference in politics and the government having doubts about the shipping loans." "The Almabo-Exmar group takes over CMB, the biggest shipowner in Belgium, and Hessenatie, the largest shipper in the Port of Antwerp." "The family patrimony is growing, while Boel shipyard is wasting away." "Almabo is a family holding company." "One family, the offspring of the Boel family, and after them the Van Dammes, and by marriage the Saverys too, along with some other families besides them, have made the choice to develop their economic heritage" "It's Almabo that participates in CMB." "The bait was too big to swallow, but the opportunity was there." "We consulted our bankers, and after five years, the take-over has been digested for the most part." "We aren't there yet, but we made the headlines..." ""Saverys pays 14 billion Belgian francs."" "Saverys borrows the money but also takes the risk." "The moment they said it was over and done with here, they invested 9.5 billion francs in the take-over of CMB." "One year later, they didn't even have 300 million francs to save us." "CMB is a public company." "Our group might control it, but the general public holds a lot of its shares." "It kind of was David taking over Goliath." "Almabo has no stock market quotation, but Almabo controls CMB." "CMB does have a quotation and figures on the BEL 20-list, the list with the 20 most important shares on the Brussels Stock Exchange." "The last major take-over took place after the previous bankruptcy, when the Saverys group claimed not to have the money to invest in Boel." "A few months later, they took over Hessenatie, the largest Antwerp shipper." "They paid some six billion." "I can summarize the Saverys' imperium by saying that they have a stake in everything that moves on the water or in the air." "That's not true." "There are companies with much more power in Belgium and also in Antwerp." "He won the battle for the maritime sector." "No, I was never the king." "At the most, I was the president of a council of peers." "Shipbuilding is now an authority of the Flemish Community." "The Boel shipyard's shares of the Belgian state are passed on to Flanders, as well as the shipping loan funds." "The government holding company GIMV, later Gimvindus, runs Boel shipyard together with the Almabo family group." "The Flemish government inherits the problems of an industry in difficulty." "The support does bring in more orders, but no further investments are made." "Due to the shipping loans, the company has lost much of its dynamism." "When the shipbuilding industry became a regional matter, the fund had some 49 billion francs." "Ten billion were used to cover the losses in the mining industry." "The fund, with its 49 billion francs, had to be used to fill other gaps, perhaps even entire mines." "We had a budget to invest in the shipbuilding industry." "That budget could be used to invest in the capital raise, serving to balance out the private investments." "The capital that was to be invested in the shipbuilding industry could be used and it was used to a certain degree." "Things are turned upside down." "Europe wanted us to change some laws, and we did." "Henceforth we had... to subsidize the shipyard itself." "Until that point, we had subsidized the shipowners." "It is true that we were promised a financial grant." "Boel shipyard was to receive a grant for the "Flanders Harmony"." "But when push came to shove, a few months before Boel shipyard went bankrupt, the government refused to pay it." "And eventually, the credits had all been granted in order to build a certain ship." "There were still payments to be made for it, and new credits had to be used to pay for a previous order." "It was a vicious circle." "And then came the first bankruptcy." "Boel shipyard was in suspension of payment." "The money was to come when the ship was delivered in September." "But it didn't come." " And we had no bank credit." "The banks withdrew." "But emotionally it was very difficult for Boel shipyard to go bankrupt." "It was dreadful." "But it was also emotionally very difficult because they tried to blame it on the private partners alone." "And Saverys was depicted as the "evil capitalist" who wanted to buy the Antwerp port, and so on." "I know what I experienced myself, and what I went through in all those painful years." "On 27 October 1992, the shipyard is officially declared bankrupt." "That same morning the employees block all entrance gates." "1,800 yard numbers face the direct threat of job loss, but both directly and indirectly about 6,000 jobs are at stake." "What am I supposed to do ?" "I'm 51 years old." "Will I be counselled ?" "A human being is nothing to a capitalist." "They only have eyes for their wallets." "That's all." "The unions blame the employer for having sucked the yards dry." "The employer blames the government for its indecisiveness." "The occupiers prevent the departure of the "Flanders Harmony"." "The gas tanker is used as a ransom and becomes the symbol of the occupation." "SOLIDARITYVISIT BY THE METALWORKERS FROM FORGES DE CLABECQ" "You are welcome here." "We invite you all to come with us." "Campaigning, ensuring constant media attention, putting pressure on politicians, that's what it's about." "The occupation would continue for months." "The Song of the Whistled International Anthem" "They drew a song from the very depths of their souls." "And if the words wouldn't come, they whistled, together." "Old dreams rising up once more:" "the whistling brotherhood, the International." "Today, there were visitors, the metalworlkers of solidarity, steelmen from Forges de Clabecq : blast furnaces, fireworlkers, class struggle." "Together, they drew one song from one single source, and whistled it as they wallked through the yard." "Old dreams will return today:" "the whistling brotherhood, the International." "Towards the end they raised their fists, both Clabecq and Temse." "Some still have to learn." "Fists to the left and fists to the right, trying to change the way of the world." "They drew an ancient ringing song from a single source." "Believing they could force the capital to sing the same words of hope:" "the whistling brotherhood, the International." "CONCRETE BLOCKS REMOVED BOEL SHIPYARD REBORN" "Under the strong name of Boel shipyard Flanders, the yard starts up again on 5 April." "The occupation of shipyard and ship had lasted for six months." "The result of the first occupation was the continuation of the yard, albeit in a reduced form." "It was clear that an occupation gets results." "It also shown that a cooperation between the three unions was possible." "For the first time in the history of Boel shipyard, office workers and executives really participated in the union's campaign." ""As the ship sailed past us, we cried like little children." "On the quayside thousands held their breath as it slowly approached them." ""The ship is coming," they whispered with respect." "The screw revolved at its lowest speed." "Majestically and tragically, the ship glided past us and I almost forgot to take a picture of her." "Her name stood out clearly on the red streamlined bow : "Flanders Harmony"." "On the foredeck stood Philemon, the big sturdy foreman of the pipe shop."" "This is how Karel Heirbaut describes the launch of the "Flanders Harmony"." "With the restart, the former private owner, the Almabo-Exmar family group, has vanished from the Zaat." "The Flemish government wanted a new partner." "The new partner was the Dutch Begemann group, that owns 51%/ of the shares." "Tabula rasa, a new start." "We couldn't choose between ten, not even between three partners." "When the shipyard was reopened for the first time, there was only one private group willing to participate with us." "Don't forget that all the papers were writing about investment programmes, and about the money they would pump into it." "We were very surprised by and in awe of the Begemann group and what they were able to do." "According to the papers, they had contacts with our government that we didn't have." "It could have been positive for Boel shipyard and Temse, to be replaced by someone who spoke the same language as the public bodies in Brussels." "Everybody was delighted when Boel shipyard reopened, also the union leaders and the politicians." "Where are they today ?" "But Boel shipyard was saved." "I still hear them say : "We've reached our goal, Boel shipyard Flanders."" "They had found someone, Begemann, who didn't know much about ships." "A Dutchman, we know much more about him by now..." "And he had to reopen the shipyard." "But what future did we have ?" "He came to take the best bits, that's all." "We can see the results today." "He'll make a lot of money." "There were still seven ships to be built, an order for billions, and that's what he wanted." "Looking back with some distance, did you ever believe it was possible ?" "Now, it wasn't your shipyard anymore." "Did you really believe that Begemann could pull it off ?" "For a second, yes." "For a minute, no." "About the rebirth of Boel shipyard NV as Boel shipyard Flanders, the conductor of the Boel Brass Band had to say :" ""We prepared ourselves right away." "We deleted the Belgian national anthem from the repertoire, and started with the Flemish Lion."" "A little later he added : "But I'm not sure whether it helped much."" "Boel shipyard was not just your average company." "It had its own company culture, to use that word, that was so closely tied to that shipyard." "It was unlike anything else." "I could sense that clearly." "When I look around Flanders and when I see it from the sky, it becomes obvious that our flat land does have its own identity, that it is closely tied to the river, to the sea..." "Our coastline is small, but I think we have a bond with, to put it poetically, high and low tide." "I think back with pleasure to Jean De Block, Temse's colourful chronicler." "With the first occupation he began putting together an impressive work, which is the only true and complete saga of Boel shipyard." "Articles from communist magazines, liberal newspapers and specialist literature from Lloyds." "He cuts articles out, collects them and he tells his story." "I said to myself : "You're 57, next year you can go on early retirement." "There's a ship with sour apples coming in." And it did come, at the horizon." "One day, Saverys stood in the porter's lodge, and I was there as well, and he said : "Look, we're bankrupt." Terrible." "As a former employee, this means a lot to me." "On this side, we see the symbol of the occupation, the "Flanders Harmony", job nr 1,539." "On the other side, we read : "Boel shipyard's occupation" and the date." "And we see the famous concrete blocks that played a special role." "And then I said to myself :" ""If Boel shipyard is to disappear, we must make sure this isn't lost."" "That's how the trilogy about the occupation of the yard came about." "The things that came before, and then in the third volume how we had a party because Begemann had taken over the company." "Although I didn't agree with it." "I knew beforehand that all they were interested in was the seven ships." ""We drink to Boel's salvation." Unbelievable, isn't it ?" "Minister Smet and union leader Stroobant." ""Why don't you kiss me now," Minister Smet asked Mr Stroobant, and she was served hand and foot." "And there's the two guys from the reception." "Why are they on this photograph ?" " That's actually a coincidence." "But to me, they saved Boel shipyard, because they poured the drinks." "Look : "Boel shipyard reopens" and then how it was." "And here : "Boel shipyard opens again, but it's no easy job."" "And here : "No reason to rejoice."" "This was said by the superintendent of Lloyd's Register of Shipping :" ""The situation at Boel is artificial at the moment."" "The man lost his job after saying this." "They blamed him for speaking the truth, already at that point in time." "I made sure all titles fitted on an A4 piece of paper." "The layout in the newspaper may be different." "It was all Tipp-Ex and glue." "I underlined what seemed important." ""Van den Brande should be ashamed."" "And look here : "Sire, there are no shipbuilders left." Look how nice." "And here : "Boel shipyard Flanders is in mourning."" "The first three volumes are about the first bankruptcy of Boel shipyard, followed by the occupation." "Then we have no less than eleven volumes, beginning with the start of Boel shipyard Flanders, the construction of the ships, until at a certain point in time there was another bankruptcy, followed by an occupation." "And we end with the sailing of the last ship, the "Navigator"." "At the Zaat, cranes are rolling again." "Apart from injecting starting capital," "Begemann and holding company Gimvindus promise to invest and modernise." "The workers waive their claims to the first bankruptcy's redundancy premium." "Management promised to be innovative and workers increasingly productive." "The new bosses speak like modern entrepreneurs." "Fine words full of hope that shine like Dutch gold." "Once more, the shipbuilders begin to believe in a future." "Boel shipyard Flanders will complete the already started projects." "The cable ship "Navigator", three chemical tankers, two refrigerated fruit ships and the "Kemira-Gas" are the present orders." "In addition to this, the shipbuilders get new orders :" "Two ships ordered by the Almabo-Exmar shipping company of the former owners, and a near-certain order for two shuttle tankers." "Europe rejects the government's plan for restructuring." "More than a decade ago, the European Commission announced that subsidies for European shipyards would be cut back." "And European subsidies have been cut back gradually." "One of the reasons for the troubles at Boel Shipyard, is that with the reduced subsidies they weren't able to attract clients." "They needed more subsidies than what Europe allowed us to grant them." "Due to Europe, neither the government nor Begemann start their investments." "Exmar shipping company cancels its order because of delays in the loans, and has the two ships built in Japan." "Not one ship in the world is built without direct or indirect subsidies." "What's direct and indirect ?" "Many shipyards work for the government." "In Japan, for example, one of the shipyards builds a 10 km long viaduct, and because they have that income and higher subsidies, they can even sell their ships at a loss." "They say : "Okay, we'll support you, if you trim back the company."" "The last time, we trimmed back to such an extent that we could only build one or two ships a year." "But it's a vicious circle." "If a shipowner wants to order a ship, he has to wait for one year at the very least, or if we are working on two ships, he has to wait for two years." "Another shipyard can start construction within 6 to 8 months." "If we trim back, our chances of attracting orders decrease." "Trimming back means cutting down." "It's our impression too that from the very beginning," "Boel Shipyard Flanders was started without giving it the chance to make it in the long run." "The only goal was to complete the seven ordered ships in order to receive the credits from the shipbuilding industry funds." "It's our impression that it was merely a judicial construction." "That criticism hurts me most." "If the only goal was to finish the orders, if it was what some called a "scenario", then we would not have shown such commitment and such effort, and I don't mean me personally, but a lot of people with me." "We are here in a depot where the sections are stored of the last two shuttle tankers that we were supposed to construct." "These sections are worth hundreds of millions of francs." "It's ironic that the first plates of the shuttle tankers were delivered to our wharf in Temse by a barge we constructed in 1946." "We were under the impression that Begemann had the relations to secure new orders for ships, but they didn't make it at all." "The only project they offered was the shuttle tankers, and that was iffy." "The Flemish government blocks the loans for the tankers." "It considers shipowner Maats' deposit to be inadequate." "The order is dropped although Boel Shipyard already invested 1 billion." "The keel is never laid, the sections around the dry dock start to rust." "I am convinced that the prospects are better if, from now on, we invest the means for the great shipbuilding industry in the economic strengthening of the Temse region." "What are you going to do now ?" " What will we do ?" "That's for the unions to decide." " Good question." "Look at us now." "You can be sure we won't give up." " That's for sure." "All they do is talk about Flemish technology and employment, but they do nothing." "Nothing at all." "The government and Begemann point at each other, but nothing ever happens." "Gentlemen, I only want to say that we pray for miracles, but in my opinion this is the end of Boel shipyard Flanders." "On 30 November 1994, the courts declare bankruptcy." "Once more the workers take action and occupy." "This is what Van den Brande wanted !" "I tore up this flag, and if Van den Brande can rescue Boel shipyard," "I promise him I will personally stitch it back together here at the shipyard." "But I'm pretty sure I won't need a needle and thread, and the flag will stay here, torn up as it is." "We want to work, that's our only goal." "Shipbuilding now." "This has been going on for too long." "We are the only party that kept its word :" "We sacrificed." "Even our holidays, and now we've been sacked." "That's how they thank us." "We must all hold our heads high and fight for our shipyard." "It is ours and it will stay ours." "The shipbuilders believe that occupation can save the company again." "They are willing to give a buyer a fair chance." "They sign an official protest against the declaration of bankruptcy." "Trying to gain time." "Time." "Waiting to be saved, occasionally taking action or holding a meeting." "Persevere." "Living on a striker's wage, being home more often than usual." "That's what occupation means." "The actions attract media attention and put pressure on the politicians." "At present, the "Kemira-Gas" and the "Navigator" lie in the dry dock, two ships that are nearly completed." "Without these two ships in the docks, it would have been far more difficult to motivate our people to keep on fighting." "Those two ships were a guarantee that something could be salvaged." "Can I ask you something ?" "You're also occupying the kitchen ?" "Yes, of course." "We do it every day." "We make soup five days a week, except on Saturdays and Sundays." "Eighty litres a day." "Fresh soup every day." "We feel it's our duty to occupy the shipyard for as long as possible, and we do hope something will come out of it." "We have given the best of ourselves and now we've been dumped." "Soup is almost ready." "After a meeting, we're always busy, doing dishes for the whole day." "As you see, we also drink the soup." "We make it and also drink it." "SMALL CHANCE FOR BOEL" "BLOCKING TEMSE BRIDGE AND SCHELDT PASSAGE" "BLOCKING MOTORWAY" "We did some forty public actions." "There were different actions going on at the same time :" "the occupation, the weekly actions, such as the blocking of the bridge, but at the same time there were legal actions and these were very complex." "Join hands, comrades." "DEMONSTRATION IN THE STREETS OF ANTWERP" "We will continue our battle to the end." "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." "Amen." "Peace to all people gathered here today," "CHRISTMAS VIGIL, MAIN SQUARE SINT-NIKLAAS" "On this night, as we remember the birth of Jesus Christ..." "BOEL SHIPYARD FLANDERS SHOULD STAY" "DEMONSTRATION IN BRUSSELS" "The shipbuilders want a settlement, they are no longer fighting forjobs." "Debt recovery, redundancy premiums, early retirement, social portfolio and unemployment benefit, those are the issues now." "These are the last actions taken by the occupiers." "The battle has been lost, but they'll fight to the bitter end." "Entire generations have worked for Saverys' capital, which he used to buy out the entire maritime sector in the Antwerp port." "With that money, he can create jobs for all these people." "What they get now is charity, just enough to buy a small car." "And the police beat them on the head." "That's democracy for you." "At the elections, we'll know what our choices are." "Saverys should pay." "He has enough money." "But no one dares to touch him." "Hundreds of seamen die each year in old ships that aren't seaworthy." "In the Third World, people are crying out for ships." "But Saverys and his gang don't make enough money with that." "This is the result." "But we'll fight for ourjobs, even if we have to knock over those coppers." "I was at Boel shipyard." "A lot of people in the "Den Es" hall today." "The workers have come to collect the C4, their letter of notice." "I address one of the workers :" ""It's a pity, all the machines and buildings going to waste."" "But he responds :" ""What do I care about the machines ?" "The fact that we are losing each other is far worse."" "At this point a school bus arrives at the Zaat." "The trip was arranged at the time of Boel shipyard Flanders." "It doesn't stop raining all day, but the children are happy and exuberant." "A former Boel worker puts on his helmet and with his C4 in his pocket proceeds to explain everything to the children." "Draughtsmen office, plate store and shaping shop, construction section, dock, and ending with a visit to the "Kemira-Gas" and its engine room, with engines up to 10 meters high." "Talking about the ship with love, forgetting the C4 in his pocket." "Today, 14 June, I attend the vote on the social portfolio in "Den Es"." "The last general meeting, the last real-life case of union democracy." "Nervously, the employees listen to the plans of government and unions." "It concerns their money, redundancy settlements and future incomes." "Then came the vote." "87%/ approved the plan." "It was the end of seven months of occupation of Boel shipyard." "After the voting, each of the union secretaries holds a farewell speech, not without sincere emotion." "I asked someone :" ""Have you started looking for a job ?" "He answered : "Not yet." "I'm waiting until the last day." "I don't know why." "And when the gates close, I'll be there, listening to them squeaking." "And that will be the end of it." "Then I'll start looking for a job."" "At the gatekeeper's lodge, they had started removing the blockades." "We fought for seven months and eventually lost." "We just lost, that's clear now." "They gave us some money." "Whatever the amount, the message is clear : "Get lost."" ""Take this, shut up and go." We won't ever forget it." "I don't buy it that we've been lucky to get at least some money." "What we got, Judas got too." ""Take this and go."" "We should have won, but alas." "One has to learn how to lose, that's true." "You can't win them all." "But it hurts." "They came back on their word." "That's something the workers never did." "They finished the two ships, as they had promised." "They gave all they had." "Production even rose, and still they were dumped." "I don't believe a politician can decide for himself." "Decisions are made by the industry, by the banks, by all bodies that must make sure the money lies on the table." "The decision to support a company or to let it go bankrupt is never made by one person." "That would make him the scapegoat." "All negotiations are held strictly behind closed doors." "We still don't know much about it." "The only thing we know is that time will reveal disgraceful matters." "Every seventh of the month I go to the welfare bureau, and there I have a chat with my old workmates." "And then you see that we all have one desire : to build ships again." "We are proud of what we did in the past, we shared the feeling of pride when we saw a ship of ours leaving." "Every day I hear them say the same :" ""I would like to begin again."" "But also : "Maybe Saverys will start again." We've heard it many times." "Maybe with 600 men, maybe there'll be other ships..." "The dream of building ships again is so strong in our people." "I don't believe it's over and done with." "No more shipbuilding in Belgium..." "that's impossible." "They say there should be a new shipyard in Europe." "All the material is here." "We have one of the best docks." "It's all so much better than in Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark." "I think, better still, I'm convinced, that we will reopen again." "A new shipyard, but half the size of what it used to be." "The Song of the Endless Beginning" "You simply plug it in and the mill starts turning." "The snalke bites its tail and the farmer starts sowing." "Office clerlks revolve around executives, executives around the manager, who sits nodding at the shareholders on the stoclk marlket merry-go-round." "And so we move baclk to the beginning, you simply plug it in." "With the shipyard's bankruptcy, we lost 1,100 jobs." "Half of the 1,100 people who lost theirjob lived in Temse at the time." "That means 550 people without salaries or with a lower salary." "That has an effect on spending power and on the local business network." "Our shopkeepers, the club life and night life are affected by it." "Moreover, Boel shipyard was a major client for dozens of companies, locally as well as across Belgium." "All those companies bled when Boel shipyard went bankrupt." "It had economic repercussions." "When Boel shipyard disappeared and the shipbuilding industry stopped, the know-how was lost." "The technical knowledge that was the result of many years of experience." "All that know-how was lost when Boel shipyard was closed." "The shipyard meant something in Temse." "During the years we all had a father, a grandfather, a brother or a son who worked at Boel shipyard." "Apart from the social-economic meaning all of this had, there was also a strong emotional and sentimental bond with the shipyard." "Boel shipyard was the heart of Temse, and had a special place in our hearts." "When I cross the bridge over the Scheldt," "I look to the left or to the right, depending on where I come from, but I'll never look in the wrong direction." "There is always a split second that in my mind" "I see the ships, as they were when I started working in '76." "There were so many ships that you couldn't see the shipyard." "Ships that were finished or almost finished." "And now it's all rusting, it's all dead." "The cranes don't move anymore." "It's not a shipyard, it's a graveyard." "Every time I feel it inside me, my veins contract." "I feel it every time I cross that bridge." "Thousands of people, thousands of families, subcontractors included, have been driven to misery and have lost all hope." "Their situation can lead to all kinds of things, but nothing positive." "And then you hear them say :" ""That's the law of economics."" "If that's the law of economics, we definitely need a new one." "I call it an economic dictatorship." "All I hear these days is :" ""You need to be flexible, you need to sacrifice social security, so that we can be competitive with other companies again."" "And that is repeated day in and day out, so that it's really imprinted on people's minds." "And even workers start saying it." "They start repeating it." "They're afraid they might lose their jobs and don't look at colleagues." "They say :" ""That's their own responsibility."" "As trade unions, we tread a dangerous path these days." "You say that we look for the easiest way." "You say we opt for social counselling, for a redundancy scheme, for fake solutions that sweeten the pill." "That is the problem today." "The big challenge that we face as a trade union is how we will live ten to twenty years from now in this society." "Will there be enough work for everyone ?" "What with social security if you are unemployed ?" "That's the big challenge." "The question is not whether there is enough money or not." "There's money enough to fill all the refuse dumps in the world." "But all the money is in a few hands, and is not used to help people." "It's only used to make rich people even richer." "I'm not against techniques that make work easier, but it doesn't mean that work ceases to exist." "There are so many needs in society which in a capitalist's mind are not profitable to fulfil, so they don't invest in these things anymore." "Take, for one, our public services." "They're very important." "If you let them die, there will be disaster in this country." "If it's no longer productive, it has to disappear." "Looking at photographs of Temse." "The quay men's monument..." "One of the entrances to Boel shipyard." "Opposite the shipyard the residence of Mr. Philippe Saverys, the last true "patron"." "Temse and Boel shipyard in the winter, in the mist." "A small group of shipbuilders is now under contract for the receivers." "There was nothing special going on at the yard, and yet I decide to drive there once more for pictures." "The only sounds of voices come from the gatekeeper's lodge." "The telephone is ringing and there is the sound of the fridge." "They offer me a beer and I read the newspaper." "Cattle have cow mad disease, Belgium has excellent motor cross riders." "This is where a labour-intensive industry ceases to exist." "Not because it is superfluous, nor because it is outdated, but because government and private entrepreneurs were unable to deal with the pressure of the international competition, of the world market." "It might be true that government, employers and employees have no power to change the course of the world market ship." "Thousands of people worked here." "They gave the best they could, with their brains or with their hands." "But eventually, it's become a desert here." "Who became poorer and who became richer ?" "I visited the Renault factory in Vilvoorde two days after bankruptcy." "More than 3,000 people had been made redundant." "Judging by the look on the faces of the negotiators, the more than 3,000 workers of Renault Vilvoorde stand no chance." "Just before the meeting, Minister Van Rompuy outragedly said that Renault management is acting irresponsibly." "That's how I came to join the march in Clabecq." "Calling for work, but what is that work for ?" "A right to work, yes, but what kind of work ?" "I stand in a meadow in Clabecq, listening to the strike leaders, in solidarity, but full of doubts." "NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION FOR EMPLOYMENT, BRUSSELS, MARCH 1997" "There are so many of them, the wage earners, the salary earners." "I see them as a large group, but one that has become strangely silent." "Demands for better wages and job security are swallowed." "Companies merge, rationalise, move." "The employee has lost his voice." "I no longer believe in the old rooms with the drums and the red flags, but even less in the deceptiveness of the global stock exchange buildings." "When we had the last occupation, in the very beginning," "I came to the shipyard and I couldn't believe my eyes." "There was a banner over a concrete block, just behind the fence :" ""Our own shipyard comes first." It gave me goose pimples." ""Our own shipyard comes first." And that at Boel shipyard in Temse, where we fought for the whole of Belgium and even beyond Belgium, where we were supported, where we received delegations of other companies, remember '81," "when we went to visit all these companies in Flanders and Wallonia..." "It was unbelievable." "I think the reason is that there is no dialogue between union people and workers." "We don't discuss anymore, we have been unemployed for too long, and we fall back on ourselves." "That causes these reflexes :" "We only look out for ourselves, racism starts to emerge, and so on." "I think that we as a union should start focusing on other things." "We should start looking beyond the borders of our plant, but also beyond the state borders." "There's a flight to low-wage countries going on, and in the process of that flight they are trying to incite us against people who are far worse off than we are." "That's a dead-end street." "Therefore I think that, if capital is globally structured, we as a union should also be that way." "On a European level, but also beyond Europe." "We mustn't build a wall around Europe, since that's what they want us to do." "There too, we're being used." "But I think that as a union, we should do some serious thinking about the society we want to have." "FIVE-DAYAUCTION AT BOEL SHIPYARD TEMSE" "DIVIDED UP INTO 7,300 LOTS" "10,000 francs for this electrical equipment." "Who offers more ?" "15,000." "Who offers more than 15,000 ?" "17,000." "Who tops it ?" "Nobody offers more ?" "Nobody ?" "Our point of view is that the goal of labour is not to enrich some and to accumulate billions." "Rather labour is essentially a service to the society that fulfils the needs of that society." "The Song of the Brolken Bicycles" "The bicycles the yard numbers used to travel across their yard are brolken." "And by Jove nobody lknows who will buy their old carcasses." "But then came the fast bicycle nut who ran off with all bicycle bells." "PREPARATIONS FOR THE LAUNCH OF THE LASTSHIP, THE "NAVIGATOR"" "A DIVER CHECKS THE BASE OF THE DOCK DOOR" "Over there..." "I found some 20 cm of mud." "The Song of the Diver" "This water is too murlky, opaque, and my flashlight far too wealk." "But as I stand here checlking the grids, my thoughts turn pitch-blaclk." "This might be a beautiful ship, but it is the sound of hard profit I hear floating in the hold." "Truth needs a strong light and clear water, but my flashlight is too wealk and the triclkery too weighty." "It was not new that the government not only financed the loan that was given under the terms of the 1948 law, but also the contributions of the shipowners." "That had been done for some years." "I believe even 20 years." "But with the "Navigator", for the first time, the shipowner succeeded in keeping some 200 million francs for himself." "In this respect, the "Navigator" was the last step in a negative development." "It was the end station of a fraudulent mechanism." "It's not hard to imagine that if such a mechanism develops, if the economic context gets tougher and a bankruptcy is involved, maleficent figures thrive on this type of situation and succeed in holding back more and more money for themselves." "I thought that eleven volumes would have been sufficient, but if you see what happened behind the curtains with that vessel, and look around you, everybody has been emotionally touched, this is more of a funeral than a launch to sea." "When the "Navigator" leaves, it will send shivers down my spine." "I've worked for 42 years for this company, and everybody feels abandoned and wonders what will come next." "As you have seen, the Boel Brass Band played for the last Belgian ship to leave the shipyard." "We will never in our lives forget this moment." "It was really terrible." "I saw people with tears in their eyes." "From 1829 onwards, 1,500 boats and ocean-going ships were built in this shipyard." "Now, the very last ship has just left the shipyard." "The shipbuilding industry has disappeared from Belgium, for good." "For Temse, Mr Mayor and Aldermen, which evolved in and around Boel shipyard for more than 160 years, for the steelworkers and the unions, for the shopkeepers and traders, this is a very painful moment." "The bells you heard were sounding the death knell, marking the end of the Belgian shipbuilding industry." "May the ship have a safe journey." "May it for decades to come and on all oceans of the world be a testimony to how great our Flemish shipbuilders were." "Must alienation of labour be the price the working man pays for his material prosperity ?" "Must he continue to be so vulnerable and so powerless ?" "Now, at this moment, we proclaim work to be a meaningful occupation, a human and social activity that contributes to something that is useful for others, for the community." "Work that is a blessing for our heads, backs, necks and nervous system." "Work is man's ally once more." "DEMOLITION OF BOEL SHIPYARD TEMSE" "END OF PARTTHREE"