National railway company of Belgium will be on strike on November 23.

November 23, NMBS will be on strike… Again. Every month, they find something to strike for. Not enough safety on the train, not paid enough, difficult working hours,… 

This is another, maybe quite unexpected example in the stakeholders theory. The employees of the Belgian railway company are definitely stakeholders, and they fight for their rights. But enough is enough. The employees don’t take account of the consequences of their actions. Every time they strike, hundreds, maybe thousands of people can’t get to work or arrive to late at work. This affects our whole economy. Every time NMBS is on strike, we lose millions of euro’s. They just aren’t aware of the other stakeholders: people from who a train is their only way of transportation. 

Striking is a human right, which I think is a very good thing. But employees of NMBS need to take account of the consequences. These consequences should be equivalent to their demands. They can’t terrorize the whole country every month…

Source: http://destandaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20101119_201

Steff Van den Bruele