BELGIUM 3,000 at festival of revolutionary press On December 18, 1976, the comrades of the Ligue Révolutionnaire des Travailleurs/Revolutionaire Arbeiders Liga (Revolutionary Workers League), Belgian section of the Fourth International, organized a festival of the revolutionary press. It was both a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of La Gauche, the comrades' French-language weekly, and an occasion for announcing the launching of the new and improved 12-page format of both La Gauche and Rood, the section's Flemish-language weekly. The festival was a great success. About a hundred stands were set up - by most of the far-left groups in Belgium, many sectors of workers, women, and youth in struggle, as well as several sister organizations of the LRT/RAL in other countries. Discussions were held among various tendencies of the Belgian workers movement. There were more than 3,000 paid admissions to the festival and more than 2,000 people attended the central meeting.
Wages needed to keep ace with official lo ncome index with pro
Monthly
¡ection of 15% inflation
Wages
K54.50
1970
K64.50
1975
K79.45
1976
K91.37
1977
K105.07
K120.82
1978
K138.94
1979 renego.
date
Thus, we find that the real wage for this category of worker in 1979 will be half its 1970 level. The government, of course, would reply that this is misleading, since wage categories are scaled according to years of service and no worker remains permanently at the lowest grade. Nevertheless, apart from the fact that it is absurd to maintain that a new worker in
1979 will have needs only half as great as a new worker in 1970, a closer look at the pay scales indicates that a worker who started in 1970 at a wage of K54.50 would have reached his maximum of K100 by 1979, still K39 short of what would be needed to keep up with the rise of the cost of living.
Lastly, an error was made in the exchange rate of the kwacha. KI=USS1.25, and not USS2.50.
INTERNATIONAL