Strike in Brussels unjustified

Railway employees in Brussels went on strike last week following a brawl between the driver of an underground train and a passenger. The liberal-conservative daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung has no sympathy with the strikers because it wasn't the passenger but the driver who struck first: "It wasn't a dispute ... over pay or working hours that led to this public transport strike in the city that likes to call itself 'Europe's capital'. It was a brawl that had broken out the evening before between a train driver and a passenger in an underground station. Because verbal or physical attacks against public transport staff have become a common occurrence, employees have begun to react very sensitively to such incidents - which is understandable to a certain extent. But when you look at video footage of the incident the case is clear: it was the driver who punched first, not the passenger. Yet even so the Brussels public transport operators had no qualms about trumpeting their 'full understanding' for the wildcat strike."

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