Students and strikers spread goodwill during rail stoppage

If you were looking around in this season of goodwill for an act of selfless charity, you wouldn’t necessarily look towards the rail unions, who have announced five days of strikes in January.

January is also exam time for universities and colleges, and some of those exams will take place on strike days. How are the students to get to school on time?

Well, fellow students in Ghent, Leuven, Antwerp and Brussels who live in digs on or by the university have offered to open up their rooms for their classmates to crash. They’re members of Comac, the youth wing of the socialist workers’ party PVDA, who take “from each according to his means” seriously.

Some rail employees, meanwhile, have opened a Facebook page where strikers with cars will be available to transport stranded students to their exams. The page was set up, organisers explain, “because we’re not the scum that some people would have you believe us to be.” So noted.

Photo: Ingimage